Cottonwood springs Company

Thousands of years ago, the local aboriginal tribes discovered the spring and later introduced the early European pastoralists and miners of Ballarat to the cool, fresh water that flowed from the side of the extinct volcano, Mt Warrenheip. The purity and quality of the premium water attracted a number of beverage industries to caterfor the needs of the nearby Ballarat goldfields.

The Warrenheip breweries near the spring were already well established and in 1864 Mr Henry Brind, opened Brind’s Distillery – the first of its kind in Australia. This claimed “the only place where pot stilled whisky was manufactured in the colony.” The breweries closed at the turn of the century and gave way to only bottlingnatural spring waters.