The Dry Tropics

The flavour of our land is core to our spirit development and our Australian Agave spirit farm has microclimate that can’t be found anywhere else.

The Eden Lassie farm possesses ideal soil for growing agave, enjoys ample generous sunlight and sits in the Whitsundays’ rain shadow. It’s a unique part of Queensland known as the Dry Tropics.

The rain and storms that come over the Great Barrier Reef from the Coral Sea are bent around our farm, pushing the rain away. This means that we have access to water moving through the region but not falling as Wet Tropics rain.

The Dry Tropics are characterised by summer dominant rainfall (the wet season – traditionally December to March/April) and a dry season extending from May to November.

On the Queensland coast, the Dry Tropics extend from where the farm is located to approximately50km north of Townsville. The reason for this stretch of coastline being drier than other locations both north and south of it is primarily due to the angle of the coastline.

During the wet season, the vast majority of rainfall comes from monsoonal activity which comes down from equatorial latitudes to the north. However outside of the periods of monsoonal trough activity, the dominant trade winds come from the south-east and these carry moisture from the sea surface onto the coast.

The angle of the coast in the dry tropics zone is about 45 degrees, meaning the warm, moisture laden SE winds go straight past this section of coast and instead hit the coast much further north - the Wet Tropics. Similarly, the angle of the coastline south of Airlie Beach means the moist trade winds are 'on-shore' and this region receives significantly more rainfall throughout the year than the Dry Tropics.

The absence of mountain ranges is the final piece of the equation that creates the unique conditions at the farm and wider region. This lack of mountainous topography doesn’t allow the warm, moist air to rise and condense before falling from the sky as rain.