To the end of the world and back

Tasmania certainly felt like the end of the world to me this week, after spending more than 23 hours in the air and around 7 hours in airports to travel home from a business trip to New York. It's longer on the way back. It takes only (!) 19 hours in the air to get there, and it also feels shorter as you arrive the same day you left, thanks to the international date line. Then on the way back a whole day is erased from your calendar somehow (what happened to my Sunday??) and every time I feel somehow ripped off. The flight wasn't the only shock to the system, as the temperature at home the day before I left was 36 degrees Celsius (97F) and -6C (21F) when I arrived in New York! I feel very lucky to be able to travel to meet my peers and leadership team and experience different parts of the world. This time, I stayed in the lower east side for a couple of nights and managed to hit the New Museum, a couple of distilleries, the northern end of Central Park and some Jewish food spots. I love NYC to bits.

Craft distilling in NYC

When I travel, I like to ask people what they know about Tasmania. Five years ago, Taz the Tasmanian devil from the Looney Tunes cartoon was the best most people in the US could come up with. On my most recent visit this month, it was a different story. Yes, Taz came up, but so did Richard Flanagan and his Man Booker prize winning novel, convict history, the film The Hunter, world-class hiking and pinot noir. I even met a couple of people who between them could name three of Tasmania's award wining whisky distillers... OK, I met those people at Kings County Distillery in Brooklyn, so that might be expected.

Kings County is one of a new breed of urban distillers. They make bourbon, moonshine and a few other small batch spirits from a historic building in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and bill themselves as New York's oldest distiller... since prohibition that is. They've been operating since 2010. On Saturdays, you can tour the distillery and learn about the history and process of distilling from corn and malted barley and sample some of the end product, aged in American oak. There's a sunny 'whiskey garden' with pop up food providers in summer. I tried a brandy distilled from a 'dud' batch of wine from a local producer. It was delicious. They even have a super friendly distillery cat.