Switching computers for artisan alcohol, how Greg Coram built Reedy Swamp Distillery

The 51-year-old artisan mirco-brewer left behind the world of information technology, in which he had been involved for 20 years, to build Reedy Swamp Distillery on the NSW Far South Coast.

"I was over that, bad back, I had carpal tunnel, tore my tendons, I had all the office ailments you could possibly have, so I was over it. Then I built this house," Greg said with a smile.

Resting in front of his uniquely designed, rammed-earth and limestone home, was his distillery, a room filled with ageing concoctions of varying densities, and pot stills for distilling his liquid mixtures.

Vodkas go through the column stainless steel stills which produce a pure 94 per cent alcohol, while copper pot stills were designed for whiskeys and rums where the transfer of flavour was important.

"Once I've got a vodka, I use an even smaller still, I pour vodka into that, dilute it to 40 per cent, then add it to botanicals and then run that through," Greg said.

"So that's why the gin is triple distilled - stripping run, spirit run, botanical run - and that applies to a few of my products, absinthe and turmeric."

On a timber shelf on the back wall of the space, small glass jars of flavourings, rather than specimens, await use to add colour and enhance taste, including juniper berries, coriander seeds, cubes of oak, cinnamon sticks, and wormwood.

An allotment of vegetable gardens and an orchard of fruit trees on the property also help to provide pineapple sage for zing, and rhubarb, which allowed the distillery to utilise homegrown produce rather than completely store bought and processed foods.

Greg said he had been infusing mint to make his liqueur green, but mint became brown as it aged, so he discovered through research that spinach and hyssop stayed green.

"Almost everything I've made is traditional," he said, creating drinks in turmeric yellows, earth wood tones, and vibrant hot pink gin through rhubarb.

The original batch of 200 litres will become 25 litres during the first distillation before being separated into large glass jars for use in one of the 10 types of drinks Reedy Swamp had produced.

"It's an alternative to using barrels, I find it's a better product, a lot of people are snobby about it and they think it's cheating," he said.

"But it's more controllable, you can decide how much wood, when to take it out. I can go, 'it's getting a bit too tangy' and take two bits out, and really dial in the flavour properly.

"Whereas with a barrel, you get what you get."

Due to a law in Australia that states whisky, brandy and rum must be stored in wood for no less than two years, Greg did have a barrel of whisky two months shy of two years going through its final stages.

He said he hadn't looked back on IT, instead finding boundless benefits to establishing the distillery with goals of a sit-in brewery, and the changes in his health since working from home.

"Hopefully by next month I'll be putting five of those products into the three independent bottle shops in the Valley with a proper label. A graphic designer is just about to send me the final on that," Greg said excitedly.