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Spirited venture up north

Mogens JohansenThe West Australian
Staff member Alysha Silver and General Manager Hayley Wells at Illegal Tender Rum Company in Dongara.
Camera IconStaff member Alysha Silver and General Manager Hayley Wells at Illegal Tender Rum Company in Dongara. Credit: Mogens Johansen

What do you do if you are bored with your job? Well, if your name is Codie Palmer you follow your passion and turn an obsession with distilling into a thriving business.

Codie, a former instrumentation electrician, was coming home miserable from his job each day. That’s when his partner Hayley Wells stepped in. I said to him, “you are going to work 30-40 years of your life, you need to do something you are passionate about” so as a birthday present, she took him to Margaret River and New Zealand to have a look at distilleries to see how the “big boys do it”.

Two weeks after they returned from New Zealand Codie sent Hayley a snapchat image of him putting his work card in the box for the last time.

“He hadn’t told me he was quitting his job so I was a bit ‘oh my God, what have I done?’” Hayley said. So the Illegal Tender Rum Co was born and before long, Codie and Hayley were working full time at the distillery in Dongara.

Since then it has been a whirlwind and in the last two years they have expanded the business. Read the full story at West Travel Club.

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