What to expect at the Mt Uncle cellar door

You can simply turn up. The cellar door at Walkamin is open daily from 10am to 6pm, closed public holidays, and a standard visit needs no booking at all. What follows is the shape of an ordinary afternoon here, so you know what you are driving up for.

You do not need to book

Walk-ins are welcome throughout opening hours. Guided tastings run to set times, at 12pm, 1pm, 2pm, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm daily, and you can reserve a place on one in advance if you are travelling up with a particular time in mind.

Groups, private functions and special requests are the exception. For those, get in touch before you come.

What the guided tasting actually involves

It runs about thirty minutes and costs $20 a guest. You get four 15ml pours, and you choose them yourself from FNQ Rum Co., Agave Australis and Botanic Australis, neat or with a mixer. If you want to keep going, you can upgrade to a larger flight on the day.

The guiding is the part that is easy to undersell. Someone talks you through how the flavour is built, through fermentation, copper pot distillation and tropical maturation, and you are tasting the results side by side while they do it. Half an hour is enough to tell you which of the three houses you actually like, which is harder to work out from a shelf.

It is a tasting, not a distillery tour

Worth being straight about. The guided tasting happens at the cellar door bar. It is a flight with someone who knows the spirits, not a walk through the still house, and nothing here is sold as behind the scenes access.

What is open to you is the property. The grounds are yours to wander, including the rows of Blue Weber agave that end up in the agave spirit.

What else is behind the bar

Once the flight is done, most people stay. There are Botanic Australis gin and tonics built to let the botanicals show and a rotating cocktail list. For the driver, or anyone not drinking, there is coffee from White Whale Coffee Roasters in Cairns, plus tea, chai and hot chocolate. The full coffee and tea list is on the menu. Bottles are for sale at the bar, and they also ship Australia wide from the online shop if you would rather not carry them.

Something to eat

A cheese board is $35 and a charcuterie board is $45. Both are prepared fresh each morning and available daily during opening hours. They are built for sharing across an afternoon rather than for lunch in a hurry.

The grounds, and how long people stay

The distillery sits on former cattle pasture high in the Tablelands, and the cellar door has open space around it rather than a car park. There are gardens, a pond, agave rows and enough room that a visit tends to stretch. It is set up to be family friendly, and the wildlife turns up on its own schedule.

If an afternoon is not enough, the Mt Uncle RV Retreat is on the property, so you can stay the night without moving the car twice.

Why it is different from buying the same bottle in a shop

Because you taste first, and you taste across houses. Four pours from rum, gin and agave spirit in half an hour will tell you more than any label will, and if one of them lands you can buy that bottle twenty metres from where you tried it. The rest is the afternoon: a drink made properly, something to eat, and somewhere to sit that is not a shop.

Before you come

Mt Uncle Distillery, 1819 Chewko Road, Walkamin QLD 4872. Open daily 10am to 6pm, closed public holidays. It is an easy drive from Cairns, Mareeba and Atherton. White Whale coffee is on from opening.

It is also worth checking what is on before you pick a date. There is live music, trivia and music bingo through the month, and a visit lands differently when there is a band playing.