Starting a CULT
First there was a boutique wine industry, followed by craft beer. Now, finds Paul Little, Kiwis are getting into the spirit of, well, spirits ...
Acouple of decades ago, every retired Queen St accountant who could afford 2ha on Waiheke was planting grapes and pumping out sauv with labels like The Godwits Return or Martha's Folly. More recently every millennial with a man bun has been brewing craft beer with names like Exploding Toady or the Hamster’s Bollocks.
It was only a matter of time before alcoholically enterprising artisans turned their attention to the tough business of hard liquor.
The craft spirits industry is now big enough to have its own professional association. Distilled Spirits Aotearoa was set up late last year and has quickly grown to include 35 distillers and five associates.
“Craft distillers were realising they needed a voice and representation for things like legislation, education and safe work practices,'' says chairperson Sue James, who has been in the industry for nearly 30 years. The group is focusing on all these issues and, of course, its own prizegiving, with entries just opened for the first New Zealand Spirits Awards.
James says distillers have something in common with the boutique winemakers of yore: “Most of the owners are mid-life, lifestyle-change people. They've been very successful and sold up. They've decided they are in love with the craft and jump into it, then find out how difficult it is.''
But they're also determined. “All the distillers have a marketing plan that relates to starting small and then looking at Australia. Many have selectively gone to different countries, especially in Asia, where they love our distilled spirits.''
A collegial attitude helps: “The philosophy is the same as in the brewing industry — there are no competitors when you're representing the product. You're raising awareness, and that benefits everybody.''
This is all well and good but some awareness needs to be raised more than others. Why, for instance, do craft distillers try to make a business out of drinks that aren't even drinks, such as bitters, which Simon Kelly and Ben Leggett are turning out at Marlborough-based Elemental Distillers?
Bitters have always come in a variety of flavours, it turns out. Those of us who thought it meant a dash of angostura in your gin and tonic and that'll do nicely, thanks, might find Elemental's concoctions a little confronting. They make three varieties: Grapefruit & Hops; Blackberry & Balsamic; and Coffee & Pimento.
Leggett says bitters can be used with just about any spirits and his main challenge has been to convince people to broaden their G&T horizons. The quickest way to do that, he's discovered, is to play on a combination of FOMO and starting a cult.
“They are extremely niche,'' he says of his products. “The people who are the market currently are not consumers, because consumers don't know what to do with them. The main people using them are cocktail bartenders. And they don't just buy them, they covet them. It's massively cult.''
And increasingly recognised. “Within our first year we sent a bottle of each flavour to the LA International Spirits Competition and picked up two golds and a silver. It was unbelievable, beating Americans at their own industry.''
Now they're struggling to keep up with demand at home, especially while Leggett still insists on handsealing every bottle with wax in true artisan tradition.
Where to buy: Wine Direct — five Auckland stores.
Where to try: Good Luck Coconut, Prego.
DIY
To prove true love is a bitters sweet affair try this version of the classic Chelsea Sidecar
Ingredients:
2 parts Roots dry gin
1 part Cointreau
1 part fresh lemon juice
3 dashes Elemental Grapefruit and Hops Bitters Dash of sugar syrup.
Method:
Shake in a chilled cocktail shaker and strain into a martini glass.
For Valentine’s Day only, garnish using fresh rose petals with drops of Grapefruit & Hops bitters like dew drops.
MOST CRAFT distillers pride themselves on using local ingredients as much as possible but that’s more problematic for some drinks than others. Take gin for example — which is 50 per cent from juniper berries and the other half the manufacturer’s own creative combination of botanicals.
Jo and David James (brother of Sue, above) began New Plymouth-based Juno gin in 2016 and started their Great New Zealand Juniper Hunt this year.
“At the very start, we imported juniper berries, but we’d also started talking with locals,” says Jo. The berries — which are technically cones, as in pine cones — came from Macedonia, Armenia and elsewhere.
In late 2017, partly in order to make their business more sustainable, the pair began working with Massey University on finding local juniper.
“We found there were trees here,” says Dave. “They were brought in as ornamentals in the 1970s, so there is potentially quite a crop of these mature trees around the place.”
But they are also dioecious, which means you need male and female, he adds. “Unless you have them both together, you’ll never get the berries.”
Jo adds: “Massey located a female in Nelson and two males in Christchurch and actually found a female producing berries on the grounds at Massey.”
Now they are seeking as many original plants as possible. “We don’t want to set up a monoculture; we want to set up a viable population. We need good strong genetic diversity to have healthy stock.” Fortunately, juniper is a multitasking marvel. The pair say their return on investment with land use is comparable with dairy if not better; and, being prickly, juniper makes great shelter belts and stock barriers.
It’s possible, too, that different climates and regions will provide different flavours. So drinkers could soon be extolling the terroir of their gin and arguing over whether the berries were grown on the southern or northern slopes of Mt Taranaki. Where to buy: West Auckland Trust, Smith & Caughey’s and selected Liquorland stores. Where to try: Anthology, Oyster Inn .
DIY
Romance is on the label with Juno, named for the Roman goddess of marriage and harmony. Jo and Dave’s initials can be seen carved into one of the tree trunks on the bottle. Here’s their suggestion for a romantic cocktail. Ingredients:
60ml Juno Summer 2018 gin
30ml limoncello
30ml lemon
90ml tonic water Honeycomb, pansy Extra honey to taste if desired Method: Squeeze lemon juice into glass.
Add gin, limoncello, lemon and tonic.
Stir ingredients, pinching mint and adding to glass to disburse essence.
Add honey to taste.
PART OF the appeal of craft spirits to its makers seems to be the sheer amount of craft involved. Many involve major technical difficulties, which is what Brent Robinson encountered when he began to make Batch10 honey bourbon.
“Someone — I can’t even remember who — mixed honey with some bourbon,” at a gettogether after a day’s fishing, recalls Robinson, “and everyone liked the results.” The honey bourbon combo has been around for a while but “the honey bourbons from overseas are sickly sweet. A lot of them use corn syrup.”
Fortunately, there’s no need here to fall back on the devil’s sweetener. Honey is one thing New Zealand can always bring to a party.
“Over a couple of years, we tried lots of bourbons and lots of honey,” says Robinson, “until we got one with a punchy bourbon front and then the very smooth taste of a New Zealand honey coming through.”
A deal was reached with a large US distillery — anonymity being a condition of the deal — and it’s their 8-year-old bourbon, imported in oak barrels, which forms the basis of Batch10’s product.
“Then we infuse it with New Zealand honey,” he says, which sounds simple, but “we learnt quickly that honey is a very sensitive beast. You can’t heat it or spin it or the honey gets corrupted at the microscopic level and it tends to go quite bitter.” And it had to be the right honey.
“Ma¯ nuka was too sweet for what we were after. We used a single apiary wetland honey where the bees feed on ma¯ nuka, kahikatea and rewarewa. The actual process we use is quite secret but it’s like an introduction — you have to introduce the honey to the bourbon and over a period of time they bond to each other.” Batch 10 is number 8 wire bourbon — no overseas processes were used in making this beverage. “It was trial and error and tastings with locals in a wee hut in the middle of nowhere,” recalls Robinson. “In the early days there was a lot of error in those trials.” Where to buy: Liquorland and Superliquor stores.
Where to try: The Vintry, Matakana; The Corner Bar, Remuera.
DIY
Honey Bourbon Lovers’ punch Ingredients:
200ml Batch 10 Bourbon
200ml pineapple juice
500ml ginger ale
400ml sparkling water
Juice of 2 oranges
Juice of 1 lime
Juice of 1 lemon
Handful of mint
Ice and an extra orange, lemon & lime to garnish Method: Juice the oranges, lemon and lime into a large punch bowl with mint. Add the Batch 10 Bourbon and pineapple juice. Just before serving add ice, ginger ale and sparkling water until at your desired strength. Mix slowly. Garnish with slices of orange, lemon and lime.
SOME ARTISAN distillers are producing spirits that are already well represented by brands that have been around for decades. They face the double challenge of making a quality product and getting it accepted by a market that’s not that big to begin with.
Stephen Menzies has had a go at absinthe and grappa but now he and his colleagues at Karven Craft Distiller in Riverhead are producing gin and vodka and making a mark with their vermouth, both bianco (white) and rosso (red).
“The vermouth is something we hope is a bit more mainstream than the absinthe,” says Menzies. “It is very botanical-led. You can tend to have wine-led vermouths with a lot of wine notes coming through, but in ours the wine has been neutralised and botanicals come through, so it has a different flavour.”
In that case, what makes the Karven vermouth the same drink as a Cinzano? “Not a lot,” says Menzies. “With ours you get a fuller mouth feel.” It’s a drink with enough flavour to be enjoyed on its own or with tonic as an aperitif, as well as in traditional cocktails.
Karven is in no rush to expand. “We’re a very small brand. We do 100-300 bottle batch sizes. It’s more about passion and a slow burn. We put some into Melbourne and there’s some in the UK. It’s expensive and a constant battle . . . it’s been a great learning curve.” Where to buy: Liquorland Newmarket, Liquorland Remuera.
Where to try: Depot, Federal St, Gemmayze St, K Rd.
DIY
New Zealand Negroni Ingredients:
30ml Karven Dry Gin
30ml Karven bianco or rosso vermouth
30ml Karven Ropere Amaro Ruby red grapefruit Method: Shake ingredients in a shaker with ice for 15 seconds. Strain into an ice-filled glass. Garnish with a twist of grapefruit and sprig of angelica.