International awards and new bar for spirit makers
It started with four mates sitting around having a drink, bouncing ideas off one another.
The Spirits Workshop brands Curiosity Gin and Divergence Whisky are the joint brain-children of four former dairy industry workers, Rod Quinn, Bernard May, Sam Toucek and Antony Michalik.
The quartet quit their various management roles at Westland Milk Products in 2016 and took a leap of faith by buying a whisky distillery, with the hope of running their own consumer-led business where they saw a potential gap in the market.
Led by chief gin officer Michalik, the drinks have continued to flow and the spirit makers have brought up recent milestones, including two whisky awards and the opening of their own cocktail bar.
The group began making whisky in 2016, but quickly discovered that the spirit’s long fermentation process meant they couldn’t start selling straight away.
In came gin. A spirit that could be bottled and sold immediately, and used as a trial product for distilling good alcohol. Curiosity Gin was born.
‘‘The gin really helped us to learn. There’s so much you can do with it, and we grew to love it,’’ Michalik said.
Early gin-making success has allowed him to expand both brands, particularly in the past year, with the opening of the Curiosity Gin cocktail bar in Christchurch’s most popular hospitality space, Riverside Market, in November.
The bar offers specially-infused cocktails with five varieties of gin and three kinds of whisky, with various tasting notes and flight cards.
An off-licence also operates on-site for buying bottles of both whisky and gin.
Two weeks ago, the Divergence Virgin French Oak whisky was awarded gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Awards.
A week later it won gold again at the New Zealand whisky awards – The Drammys. Divergence began officially releasing its whisky in October 2020.
Despite receiving two international awards in the whisky’s first year of release, Michalik insisted the company was still working hard to become successful, and had much to learn.
‘‘We’ve made some mistakes along the way and had to rebrand about 18 months ago, but that really helped us out in the long run.’’