Brand Tas

Tasmania is not for everyone. Yet for some, this place seems designed just for them—including those who have been everywhere and could live anywhere.

Craig Andrade, founder of Tasmanian perfumery The Raconteur, grew up in South Africa and studied commerce and law. From there, he went to the United States as a Fulbright scholar. He started his legal career in New York, ended up in London, and moved alone, on his 30th birthday, to Melbourne.

When Craig speaks, you can hear the world in his accent.

“I think it depends on who I’m talking to,” he says, turning his vowels and consonants. “If you were from South Africa, I’d probably talk a bit more like this. I would just call it an international accent. Consciously or subconsciously, you’re trying to be understood.”

What Craig learned, as a lawyer, is how to listen and understand people, to solve their problems. Today, as a perfumer, he uses similar skills and talents in a different way. “I’m not solving a problem so much as answering a question,” he says. “What is the concept behind this fragrance? What is the story we’re trying to tell?”

I remember this moment when I added the fragrance and breathed it in and… something happened. It was this powerful moment of inhaling the scent and realising it had this power to calm, to ground, to create this immediate sense of stillness.

Craig is still listening and analysing. He is still looking for creative solutions. “Only now it’s with plants,” he says. “Plants are the medium I am using to communicate with, instead of words, with essential oils and odour, with people as a customer. This isn’t about billable hours. Here, my worth is measured purely in terms of beauty, and whether somebody has any interest in what I am doing, subjectively. There is no objective right or wrong, as there is in law.”

As a mergers and acquisitions lawyer Craig worked crushingly long hours, travelled the world, and sacrificed a lot—including his creative side. When he was young he had wanted to be an architect, only he couldn’t draw. Then in his early 40s, living in Sydney, he received a voucher for a candle making class as a gift. Craig went for it, his last opportunity.

“It was a Thursday,” he says. “I ducked out of the law firm and I remember this moment when I added the fragrance and breathed it in and… something happened. It was this powerful moment of inhaling the scent and realising it had this power to calm, to ground, to create this immediate sense of stillness.”

Soon, Craig was obsessed with that power. For a holiday he booked a program at the Grasse Institute of Perfumery in Southeast France. In one of the classes, his instructor ran through the United Nations of ingredients and underplayed Australia as only the home of eucalypts and boronia. Craig put up his hand. He realised there was an opportunity to unleash the magic of Australian botanicals... which led him to Tasmania.

“Boronia is one of the blockbuster ingredients in perfumery, and it’s largely native to Tasmania,” he says, of early trips as he began his transition from corporate lawyer to perfumer. “Every time I came down I would tack on other bits to see more of the state. I’d go on bushwalks. And every time I came away with this incredible sense of peace. There is something very gentle about Tasmania.”

When he was ready, Craig left his job as a lawyer to pursue his new passion full-time. He launched The Raconteur, his perfume brand, and opened a shop in Sydney. And he wondered about a new concept, inspired by wineries that celebrate terroir in their grapes: a “paddock to perfume” cellar door.

“There aren’t many places in the world where you can visit a perfumer growing and distilling on site. You don’t generally find perfumers living on the land, among the plants, in nature, the source of these scents. They tend to be in offices, or laboratories, surrounded by thousands of bottles. The greatest thing I could do is to be more connected to the source of it all: nature.”

Craig began looking for land in Tasmania.

It was an abstract idea until Craig found a house. “I had seen these Georgian houses on a trip through the Midlands, and unfortunately I’m a bit of a tragic who loves old houses. So I had a bit of a search going for a Georgian property and after 9 months of searching one came on the market. When I arrived to visit, I didn’t need to go inside. I was like, yep, I’m done, this is it. The owner was a gardener and had created all these beautiful places and small courtyards and vignettes, discoveries within discoveries within discoveries: all revolving around scent. So much love had been poured into this property, you could feel it”.

They tend to be creative, people who choose to become Tasmanian, risk-takers.

Craig opened a retail location for The Raconteur on Morrison Street in Hobart, which he calls The Consulate. It is softly lit and sumptuously decorated, with warm earthy tones, seagrass matting on the floors and walls, artist-woven pampas grass panels suspended from the ceiling—endorsed by a Tasmanian Biosecurity permit—and lampshades made from Tasmanian boronia wax residue from recent boronia flower harvests. At the farm, outside Hobart, Craig's plan is to welcome visitors to his botanical laboratory, to give them insights into the vast world of all things scent-related. He has been thinking of those visitors, people like him who have been lured to Tasmania from other parts of Australia and around the world, people we call ambitious introverts who love nature.

“They tend to be creative, people who choose to become Tasmanian, risk-takers,” he says. “I think we could lure more of them, more of us, who don’t need to be in the big city all the time… There is a great lifestyle here. It’s adventurous, driven by real seasons, great wine, produce and a thriving arts community. But best of all, there’s an abundance of people all genuinely living their lives of meaning and purpose, and all sharing a strong connection to nature. There is a beautiful authentic rhythm to this. What’s not to love about that? I’m raising a glass to toast that, right now.”