Ian Glatz

Ian Glatz commenced at Berri on the 13th January 1969 and retired on the 26th July 1985.

With Ian Glatz down memory lane.

I collected photos of the Berri Bond fire, which were taken by Russell Frost, Manager of Tarac Berri.
Ian loaned me a series of newspaper articles he had collected over the years featuring Brian Barry and Ian McKenzie plus some articles by Philip White. Will extract what info. I need.

John Milhench, Excise officer at Berri and Loxton.

Trevor and Elaine Becker. Elaine’s parents are Perce and Norma Lehman.

Ray Harrip and Bill Kidman retired on a Friday just prior the 1970 vintage. This ties in with John Robb’s comments re installation of the Old Continuous still at Chateau Remy, Avoca, VIC.

Bob Bysouth employed an assistant to Ian sometime in 1970. Bob is deceased.

Ian sends his best regards to Steve Horvat.

Harold Niendorf cleared the Bond site after the fire. One hogshead of brandy escaped!!!

Warehouse No. 4, between east wall of Bond Store and Tarac boundary survived.

Boiler attendants were Steve Horvat, Bob Whittingham, Ivan Horvat, John Bartsch (married a Bailey daughter), sister to Kath Colbert. Distillers were Steve Horvat, Ivan Horvat, John Bartsch (Brother Trevor was employed in the Workshop), and Ron Potts.

Ian was in charge of the boiler water feed treatment. Catoleum product Alfloc was used.

Ouzo production experienced problems of cloudiness at low temperatures. I advised Cec. Lever that we needed to use a higher spirit content. A higher strength would mean that there was no profit. I said that we should either increase the alcohol content or cease making Ouzo!!!

On the morning of 25th February 1974 at 9.20 a.m. according to Ian Glatz, he heard a loud thump. The Bond Store was on fire.

Mel Cawse and Peter Mason were carrying out spirit runnings the morning of the fire.

Perhaps the lead light had a “short”. Who knows? Ian Glatz said they always left a long hose from the door to the spirit receivers so they could add distilled water to decrease the brandy concentration. The regulation for brandy was a maximum of 145 degrees “Proof” or 82.82 percent by volume. From my experience there was the result of the quiet hours when distiller’s nodded off! The condition is to do with the human clock and has and will always be a problem.

Ian Glatz seen here in 1982 receiving his 20 year service pin.