THE STORY OF DISTILLATION

Born in Tasmania to a Cypriot Lineage. Distillation runs in my blood. My genes. My DNA. Tracing back the craft through my GreatGrandMother and the GrandMedicine Mothers gone before her.

DRAWN FROM THE ISLE OF CYPRUS 1951: My Grandfather Napoleon Pantazis (Pappou) boarded a chartered aeroplane from Cyprus to Cairo en route to Darwin in a passenger plane named Constellation.

My GreatGreat Grandfather was Pantazis Louka.

My GreatGrandfather was Neophytos Pantazis (B.1900) In 1927 he married my Great Grandmother Paraskevou Demetriou Kouti. “Little γιαγιά” (we called her as children) crafted her own rose water. Pappou remembers collecting the mixed variety of roses, little Yiayia would then dry the petals and use her "Abikos" for Steam distillation. He remembers the gentle way she would wake him and clean his morning eyes with rose water and cotton to bring in each new day.

Rose Water sits at the heart of PANTAZIS and is where this story begins and continues today.

SENSE OF PLACE TASMANIA 2014: My wonderful Welsh Mother Debbie was growing beautiful white garden roses ‘Rosa noisettianna 'Lamarque'. I took fascination as she cut them back to dry on racks as potpourri for the buddhist statues she visited. I then started cutting them back myself, boiling them up and straining for the water. After much research I pieced together my first pot still with a spiralled copper pipe attached to a pressure cooker.

THE ELEMENTS: The cooker/pot still filled with rose petals sits atop a gas flame. The copper pipe rests in a bucket of ice. As the still heats to a slow boil I reduce the flame to a simmer. As the water vapour rises up through the pot to the spiral it hits the cool of the ice and instantly condenses into a pure flora water/hydrosol. Similar to ‘the clouds’ and precipitation. Through the pipe into the bottle, at a slow-drip per second I capture the condensation to be sealed in your bottle.

PIONEERING SPIRIT 1955: My Great Grandfather Thomas Ruddick (B.1911) left the CWM South Wales United Kingdom Railway onboard the Otranto docked on the Thames River with my Great Grand Mother Phylis Price (Williams) Aunty Clinis, Aunty Marlene and our Grandfather Philip destined for Fremantle Australia. There, a letter awaited Poppa Thomas to Tarraleah to work with Hydro Tasmania. Once settled, his son, our Grandfather Phillip Ruddick also started working on the Hydropower scheme with an apprecticeship.

Philip married my Grandmother Kay in Bronte Park in 1958. Mum was born in 1959 whilst living in the Poatina Hydro-village.

My father Neville (Neophytos) Pantazis met Mum whilst studying a batchelor of Fine Art at the University of Tasmania. I was born soon after. This is where the story of these islands collide and where the ancient art of distillation meets my hydro-sol celtic calling.

Dedicated the next generation & the preservation of this medicine x.