FEATURE Whisky
Cardrona Distillery’s first single malt, Just Hatched, is receiving favourable reviews. (Photo: Cardrona Distillery)
Spirits of THE SOUTH T h e S o u t h I s l a n d ’s s p i r i ts i n d u st r y h a s a co l o u r f u l p a st a n d a b r i g h t f u t u re.
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istening to Cardrona Distillery founder Desiree Whitaker explain what goes into producing a bottle of whisky is like opening a doorway to another world. The distillery, on the road between Wanaka and Queenstown, is one of the leading lights in a Renaissance of the spirits industry in the South Island. Its first single malt, Just Hatched, was named New Zealand’s best 12-years-andunder at the 2020 World Whiskies Awards in the UK in February, despite only being three years old.
Whisky Magazine also named it as one of the top 50 they’d ever reviewed. Whitaker says that’s a testament to the master distiller Sarah Elsom and the mentors who guided the creation of Cardrona, from the Forsyths in Scotland, the world’s best still makers, to American pioneer Dave Pickerell. “One of the qualities of a great whisky is that you can identify it comes from a specific distillery,” Whitaker says. “You can have two distilleries standing sideby-side, same barley, same yeast, producing whiskies with completely different characters.
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