FEATURE: Whisky

Spirits of the South

The South Island’s spirits industry has a colourful past and a bright future.

Listening 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.

That’s because a whisky’s character is built in layers and every decision, every quirk, has an impact.

Those decisions include the strain of the barley and level of peat, the grind of the mill, the mill itself, the style of the mash, size of the mash tub, the material the washbacks are made from, the presence of ‘wild yeast’, the length of fermentation, the temperature at many different points along the way, and the size of the still.

“Small stills, like ours, give high copper contact, which removes the natural sulphur that’s come through from the barley itself. That smells like burnt popcorn. So that drops out and it sweetens the spirit.”

Then there is the barrel-aging process and the choice of wood to mellow the fiery young spirit. Cardrona uses a combination of three - sherry casks from Oroso in Spain, ex-bourbon from the States, and French oak red wine casks from Central Otago Felton Road.

Renowned whisky expert Charles MacLean described the character of Cardona whisky as “borage flower honey”.

“It has a very rich, creamy feel on the tongue, or a butteriness,” Whitaker says, “and that comes from the wild yeast - lactis bacillus, which is distinct to Cardrona.

“Sarah encourages its presence in every fermentation by taking a bucket from the end and pitching it into the next.”

Cardrona will be an important part of the industry’s future in New Zealand, but the history of spirit making in the south is a far more roguish affair.

It is a near 200-year history of drunken sailors and whalers, of illicit alcohol distilled in the bush, of run-ins with the law under prohibition, and of notorious paint-stripping firewater like ‘McShane’s Chained Lightning’ which legend has it led to the sinking of at least one ship.

“He was rendering down cabbage tree leaves and roots and selling it literally by the bucket-full to visiting whaling ships,” says Gore District curator Jim Geddes. “It was sort of a toxic version of rum.”

Scottish widow Mary McRae brought her seven grown children and a small domestic whisky still, in a box marked ‘household goods’, from the Highlands to the Hokonui District of Southland in 1872.

They brought distilling experience, along with an aversion to paying excise tax. So until 1957 they were implicated in 28 of the 31 prosecutions over the production, sale, and distribution of illicit spirit in Southland - particularly after prohibition in 1902.

Even as an old lady, Mary was known to hide a whisky barrel under her voluminous skirt or in her bed when the police turned up.

While it is believed the McRaes barrel-aged some of their spirit, making it a proper whisky, in truth most of the illicit alcohol produced those days was not aged, and therefore was a grain spirit, says Geddes.

“Customs and police were circling all the time, so it was a case of get it done and get it sold. It was bulk spirit production.

What came out was clear and it was basically firewater. At best it was close to a commercial brand spirit, at worst it was a public health hazard.

The history is told at Hokonui Moonshine Museum, which will reopen next year following a $1.8 million renovation. It will feature new visitor areas and an artisanal new spirit still for its Old Hokonui spirit.

“That will bring the production of Old Hokonui on site,” Geddes says. “It will be part of the story and we’ll be doing a grain spirit as we always have.”

The still will produce about 300 litres per batch, with local ingredients and their own distinct flavour and character, at either 40% proof, or 23%. Artists are lined up to design the labels and other features of the museum displays. Leading New Zealand artist Dick Frizzell has designed one in the past.

The popular 20-year-old Hokonui Moonshiners’ Festival will be rescheduled for a grand opening.

“It’ll be a special one in 2021,” Geddes says.

Other South Island distilleries include Canterbury’s Workshops Whiskey, Queenstown Lakes’ Broken Shed Vodka and Broken Heart Gin, Kiwi Spirit in Golden Bay, Reefton Distilling Co, The Spirits Workshop Distillery in Christchurch, and more.

Kiwi Spirit notably produces tequila from blue agave. Owner Terry Knight has propagated a blue agave farm, the only one outside Mexico, from plants over the past two decades.

While not distilling at present, the New Zealand Whisky Collection is also a big name in the industry. When Dunedin’s Willowbank Distillery closed in 1997, hundreds of barrels of cask strength whisky were sold or mothballed in an old airplane hangar.

In 2010, New Zealand Whisky Collection bought the last 80,000 litres, in 443 barrels, and has been producing batches from it ever since from its headquarters in Oamaru.

Until recently it had a cellar door at Loan & Mercantile Building in Harbour Street, Oamaru, but it will reopen in the former Northern Hotel, on Wansbeck Street, in the new year.

The Willowbank Distillery was opened in 1974 by the Baker family. During the 1980s it flourished under Canadian firm Seagrams - the world’s largest distiller. That represented the last high point of the southern industry.

But Cardrona’s Whitaker literally bet the farm on its future, selling up and pouring the money into her passion. It took five years of planning, and the first cask was made five years ago on November 5, 2015.

“It’s really exciting times for the industry,” she says. “Seeing new distilleries popping up and the character of those distilleries being established is just wonderful. The joy of whisky is the nuances.

We’ve built ourselves not to be the biggest in the world, but among the greatest, and we’re just enjoying that journey now.