Central Otago distillery offers ‘best job in world’
During the day, you’ll be working to put New Zealand whisky on the map at a world-leading distillery. On your days off, you’ll be skiing in the nearby mountains, boating on the lake and enjoying Central Otago’s world famous nature.
“This truly is the best job in the world,” Scapegrace Distilling Co’s co-founder Daniel McLaughlin said.
It’s searching internationally to recruit for the new role – an assistant distillery manager and master blender, to work alongside their current master distiller.
“You’ll be carving the single-malt whiskey industry in New Zealand on the world stage and really shaping and developing that.
“And what better place to be doing that from than paradise here in Central Otago.”
The position is based at the newly built $30 million Scapegrace Distillery, set to open next month.
“You’’ll be working with a world-class facility and a great location, perched up 100 metres on the side of the mountain overlooking Lake Dunstan, so it’s a really remarkable spot,” McLaughlin said.
“The distillery we are building here is the largest in New Zealand’s history and so this is a really world-class facility.”
McLaughlin said the role involved a combination of technical expertise, sensory evaluation, and creative innovation to lead the cask, sensory and blending strategy.
“There’s a lot of sensory work required in all our new product development, so helping us build and shape what our new products will look like and obviously a lot of hands on work in the actual distillery itself.”
The catch is the chosen candidate needs to have five years’ experience in distilling whisky. “There’s probably only a handful of people with that kind of experience in the country, but it’s definitely a potential for sure. We’ve had applications from as far away as Scotland, Japan, Canada and, of course, New Zealand and Australia.”
McLaughlin said he started the company with his brother-in-law Mark Neal and Richard Bourke almost 10 years ago. It’s now the country’s largest independent spirits company, with a team of about 20, McLaughlin said.
But with the opening of the new distillery there would be a few more roles popping up.
“It’s an exciting time for the company. And we are really keen to put New Zealand single malt whiskey and spirits on the world stage, that’s a big part of the reason why we started this company 10 years ago.”