Jeff Allen conducting a distilling workshop at Four Winds. Photo: The Allen family.
It has been a 29-year journey that started in the Bega Valley and has come full circle.
All that time, Jeff Allen has been learning about plant-based essential oils and their medicinal and wellbeing properties while designing and manufacturing more than 300 stills from 25-litre capacity to 1500 litres.
His skills have been transferred to America, Croatia, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, and many other countries.
For years Mr Allen trained farmers in developing countries how to use stills to add value to their natural resources and to empower them through community development instead of harvesting the raw material and selling it.
Universities and cosmetics companies have also contracted him to survey plants in different areas.
It all started when he began an apprenticeship as a chef and fell in love with the fusion of smells.
“My father, Eric, and I designed the first still when I was 18 years old,” Mr Allen said. “Once I had that portable still, I could drive anywhere and harvest. I started experimenting and learning.”
In 1996, he moved to the Bega Valley to help a friend start a lavender and olive farm, and to establish his own business.
The logistics there were insurmountable, so 18 months later he moved to Beechworth in Victoria, where he got the business up and running.
It was to be his base for the next 20-odd years as he started travelling and working overseas.
Jeff Allen is a master distiller with more than 30 years’ experience. Photo: Honey Atkinson.
Mr Allen spent eight years in Vanuatu teaching farmers how to distil sandalwood oil and other products such as cocoa and virgin coconut oil.
In Vanuatu, Fiji and Papua New Guinea, he developed steam generators that ran on coconut oil rather than diesel.
“That was a huge saving on costs,” Mr Allen said. “When you use coconut oil, you are creating jobs and using a natural resource instead of something imported with pollutants.”
Mr Allan worked in Egypt for eight weeks for the United Nations Industry Development Organisation.
He audited 12 distilleries along the River Nile to identify areas of processing and distilling. The aim was to lift the quality of end products such as oils used to perfume food flavouring.
He returned to Australia in 2020 just as COVID started making headlines.
Since then, Mr Allen has been working on the business plan for Blue Moon Distillers, which is about to be launched.
He specialises in Australian native plants, preferably endemic to the Bega Valley.
The formulations are called Sense of Place.
“When you walk through the bush after rain in Pambula, it will smell different from the bush in Candelo because of the different plants growing in the area,” Mr Allen said.
The idea of place-based scents grew as he travelled the world.
He liked the idea of being able to smell the West Australian bush while reading Tim Winton novels.
Blue Moon Distillers specialises in Australian native plants, preferably endemic to the Bega Valley. Photo: Honey Atkinson.
From there, the concept of co-distilling evolved.
“I harvest all the plants at once and co-distil them to get a bespoke oil for that area, so you get that sense of place.”
He has done the first run of Sense of Place for Tanja, Bermagui and music venue Four Winds in Barragga Bay, plus a marine botanical oil.
His focus on native plants endemic to the valley will see him design an essential oil blend for each of the shire’s villages.
“For each village, I will work out which plants grow in the area and make different formulations,” Mr Allen said.
“Then at a central spot in the village, I will invite community members to smell each of them, learn about what I do, and vote for the best formulation. The winner will go into production as the Sense of Place for that village.”
Blue Moon Distillers is so named because the moon’s cycle dictates when harvesting occurs “to get the best medicinal properties”.
It is a one-man operation, but Mr Allen works with several farmers in the valley and would like more farmers to grow plants for him.
“I have done the research, so have the best genetic seeds,” Mr Allen said.
All the plants are natives and endemic to the area, so there is no introduction of potential weeds.
“Ironically, farmers treat many of the plants as weeds but instead of spraying them, they can harvest the plants and I will pay for them,” Mr Allen said.
Blue Moon Distillers’ launch is at Honorbread at 8 Bunga Street, Bermagui from 1 pm to 3 pm on Saturday, 8 February. Register for the event via Humanitix.
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