Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Adversity can be the mother of innovation, and Beenleigh rum distillery, just down the road from my office, the oldest operating rum distillery in the country, has recently won gold medals at the International Spirits Challenge and the San Francisco World Spirits Competition for its distillery-exclusive 2017 Flood Rum. In 2017, when Tropical Cyclone Debbie hit Queensland, the distillery was once again flooded, but, once it was operational again, the experienced distillers ran the ferment through their stills and the unique rum was released and bottled by hand. Head distiller Wayne Stewart said:

A product made from adversity … something good came from something bad. I knew the day we distilled it that it was going to be something special.

My congratulations to the whole team at Beenleigh rum.

During COVID, Frosty Boy, based in Yatala in my electorate, used the quiet time to look at how they could create new products. Ice-cream shops were shut. Food home delivery services were booming but ice-cream, especially in Queensland's heat, doesn't easily lend itself to Uber Eats. So the scientists at Frosty Boy decided to create a delicious slow-melt ice-cream—as their famous slogan goes, 'often licked but never beaten'. It is just as good. I can speak firsthand of its great quality.