THE STORY OF DISTILLATION

Tracing back the craft through our GreatGrandMother and the GrandMedicine Mothers gone before her.

CYPRUS CIRCA1936: Our GreatGrandmother Paraskevou Demitriou Kouti “little γιαγιά” (we called her as children) crafted her own rose water. Our Grandfather Napoleon Pantazis remembers the gentle way she would wake him and clean his morning eyes with rose water and cotton to bring in each new day. He recalls collecting the mixed variety of roses whilst γιαγιά would dry the petals and use her "ABIKOS" for Steam distillation.

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

SENSE OF PLACE: TASMANIA 2014: Our 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 frequented. I then started cutting them back myself, boiling them up and straining for the water. After much investigation 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. Through the pipe into the bottle, at at a slow-drip I capture the condensation. A fragrant water.

PIONEERING SPIRIT 1955: Our GreatGrandmother Phylis Price (Williams) & GreatGrandfather Thomas Ruddick left the CWM South Wales United Kingdom Railway with their three children Aunty Marlene, Aunty Clinis and our Grandfather Philip destined to work on the Hydropower Scheme in Tarraleah, Tasmania. Our Grandfather Philip Ruddick also worked on the Hydropower scheme and met Nanny Kay in Bronte Park in 1958. Mum was born whilst living in the Poatina Hydro-village.

Our father Neville 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 to my two sisters and all the Γιαγιάδες.x.