Mountain mist from Tasmanian wilderness along Huon River turned into bottled water

A Tasmanian couple with the ingenious idea to bottle water from the state’s mountain mist has struck liquid gold. 

Jenny Carrasco and husband Justin Hickey have been bombarded with requests since their Pure Mist sparkling water took out the top gong in its category at The Fine Water Society Taste Awards in Athens last month. 

Based on 360 degrees of sprawling farmland either side of the untroubled Huon River, the pair collect water from the sky upon nets strategically placed within areas blanketed in mist. 

Jenny Carrasco and husband Justin Hickey (pictured) gave up their jobs in Melbourne to collect water from mountain mist in Tasmania

Nets erected strategically collect the mist five months a year 

The company had been but a blip on the radar of the world’s bloated bottled water market before winning gold in the sparkling category and silver in the still. 

It is now fielding orders from restaurants and airlines across the globe, with a major contract in China expected to see production skyrocket over the winter months. 

Ms Carrasco told Daily Mail Australia she came up with the idea to extract water from the sky while visiting her home town in Chile, South America. 

‘We lived in the desert and it rains every eight to 10 years so we have to collect water in smarter ways to water our gardens and this is how we did it, we had nettings up in the hills and when the mist came from the ocean it trickled down to tanks and that’s how we did it’ she said. 

A discussion about the process while sitting on the couch with her husband a little under two years ago got the ball rolling. 

‘My husband said there was plenty of mist down in Tassie, because he was born here in Tasmania and knew the Huon Valley,’ Ms Carrasco said. 

The couple had been living in country Geelong, south of Melbourne, with Mr Hickey working in IT and Ms Carrasco at the local hospital. 

‘This is something completely new and we both have learnt a lot about water and gin in the last year-and-a-half let me tell you that,’ she said.  

Punters enjoy a taste of Pure Mist gin at recent festival

Mist gathers on sprawling farmland either side of the Huon River

Pure Mist pre-mixed and bottled gin was developed after liquor tycoons came knocking

The couple bought a small farm in the valley and collected their first tanks of water, which came back from the lab with zero signs of toxins. 

‘We thought there was a better way to collect water than getting it from a river or digging into the ground,’ Ms Carrasco said. 

The process of collecting water from the sky can only be achieved during the colder months.  

‘For five months of the year we get this very thick mist that comes through the Tahune Forest and as it comes through it hits our netting and condenses the particles of water and transfers into droplets of water, which gravity feeds down into a tank,’ Ms Carrasco said. 

The water goes through a three-tier filtration process before being bottled. 

The mountain mists along the Huon River provide a unique taste to Pure Mist’s water 

Within six months of operation the couple got the idea to start turning their water into gin after several approaches from Tasmanian distillers. 

‘They wanted to buy our water because it was so pure, but we thought about it and said we’d make a gin and see how we go. And now it’s going really well because it’s got a unique taste to it just like our water,’ Ms Carrasco said. 

The company extracted 10,000 litres of water in its first five months before erecting more nets in the summer. 

It is now in the process of putting up even more nets, expanding from five ten-metre high nets to 10 in an effort to meet demand.  

‘Since we won the award we got a deal with China and have been contacted by someone in Canada … and a couple of airlines have contacted us too and we’re going to have it in a couple of hotel down here in Tasmania,’ Ms Carrasco said. 

The couple hope to open a cellar door shop on their property in the near future and eventually build tiny homes on the farm where people can stay and see how the mist is collected and bottled. 

The company’s products will be accessible at the upcoming Melbourne Food & Wine Festival and similar events across the country. 

It can also be purchased online directly from its website.