The Great Gin Boom

Tash McGill is a spirits and hospitality writer who regularly hosts tastings and education classes for those wanting to know more about spirits and their uses - from cocktails to culinary food matches. She has been in the spirits and cocktail industry for more than 10 years, writing, tasting and judging competitions.

The New Zealand gin category has exploded over the last four years, with more and more local brands available than ever before. It’s following a global trend, but in a unique way, as more distillers are working towards capturing a New Zealand style of gin, including flavour profiles that feature native botanicals.

It’s hard to keep track of the rapidly growing number of commercial distilleries – while all must have a CCA (Customs Controlled Area) or LMA (Licensed Manufacturing Area) license, the most current Government list (from 2018) includes all CCA licenses from freight operators, duty-free stores and the like, not to mention the list starts with a disclaimer regarding the potential inaccuracy of the data.

“We have 61 members, and 41 of them say they are producing gin - so that’s 67%, or two-thirds,” says Sue James, chairperson of Distilled Spirits Aotearoa. “We think there are about 21 other (nonmember) distilleries in New Zealand, so a total of 83. If you extrapolate this, it would make 55 distilleries making gin in New Zealand,” she says.

Imagination gin is one of the newer brands to hit shelves. Launched in 2019 by mates Simon Wilson and Chris Charteris, the brand a story of friendship, ingenuity, curiosity and learning.

What started as a home brewing operation to share beer with mates on the weekend, quickly turned to spirits distilling as Simon and Chris quickly realised the global gin wave was headed to New Zealand.

They ran the small still for two years, doing consistent tastings, before moving from Nelson to Kapiti and taking up residence in the Kapiti Coast distillery, which was once home to Tuatara Brewing,

“When we made our first batch and we didn’t even fill the still up,” says Simon. “We made about 100 bottles and it sold. So we did the same thing and did about 400 bottles, that lasted about two weeks. And then it’s kind of just exponentially growing since then.”

Trying to capture something uniquely ‘New Zealand’ is important to almost all New Zealand distillers, whether that’s 1919 Distilling’s Pineapple Bits gin (a seasonal release that sold out in days and has become a regular) or Little Biddy Gin from Reefton, that features multiple New Zealand botanicals in each of their unique recipes.

Some are more common than others and some work better than others, with traditional gin botanicals such as cassia

bark, cinnamon, cardamom, orris root, angelica, star anise and of course, citrus peel and juniper, the base flavour of all gin.

When it comes to the Imagination gin recipe, it was a matter of trial and error. It’s not unusual for a gin, particularly one made in a London Dry style, to contain 13- 15 unique botanicals to enhance and sway the juniper. Chris and Simon pared their crucial recipe down to only eight.

Imagination leans into traditional and classic gin ingredients and quite specifically on how they are treated in the distillation process to develop a very pronounced and recognisable gin flavour. For example, instead of focusing on citrus peels, they mascerate the entire fruit.

“We found it really quickly that if you told someone ‘I made this, what do you think?’, they say ‘oh, I love that you made it, well done!’, says Simon. “So we started doing double-blind tastings. We found out really early on that it could be the most beautiful tasting gin, but if it was just kind of hot on the nose, you lost them.”

When it comes to the unique recipe and defining their own characteristics, Imagination turned to sugarcane for the base spirit. After plenty of experimentation and adjustments on each batch, the team learned from experts how to produce the clean, consistent base spirit for the gin. They’ve settled into a rhythm of fermentation that lasts approximately three days and provides the mouthfeel and clarity they’re after.

“We kind of got stuck in and then found out afterwards we could have made it slightly easier on ourselves by starting with whey ethanol!” says Simon.

WHAT NEW ZEALAND GIN TASTES LIKE

The New Zealand gin market is full of native botanicals…

• Horopito for peppery, citrus bite

• Manuka for woody sweetness

• Kawakawa for floral and spice notes,

• Kahikatea for slightly sweet, resinous notes

• Tarata for lemon and citrus

• Toatoa for tannic qualities

Running a full production distillery means Simon and Chris oversee every part of the process, from fermenting the base spirit to the still runs, ensuring the quality of the product. It’s a transparency they are proud of. It also comes with increased costs, from square footage required to run a mash tun and/or fermenter set up, increased time and raw goods costs, which is why for so many New Zealand distilleries, focusing on getting great quality stills for distillation becomes the focus. With an abundance of base ingredient, all you need is a still and the appropriate skills and licensing to become a distiller of gin and vodka.

WHY REGULATE?

There is increasing pressure for greater transparency and integrity from distillation to botting to labelling in the New Zealand spirits world, with the DSA currently facilitating a discussion on proposed regulations on the New Zealand whisky category, but the gin category is equally up for debate.

While there are few international or regional regulations on how gin is made (essentially from any clear base spirit and with juniper as the leading flavour), the actual process could be anything from vapor distillation to infusions, with no category specific labelling requirements outside of the licensing requirements.

One such example is the use of whey ethanol, a by-product of the dairy industry and an extremely clean and cost-effective base to work from when distilling and making any generic white spirit. Fermenting and distilling whey reduces waste products and environmental impact from dairy and in fact, many of New Zealand’s most successful and awarded spirits are in fact made from whey ethanol, but it’s how the ethanol is treated and used in the manufacturing process that could benefit from further regulation.

Usually whey is fermented, treated and then distilled at least once before being sold on to be distilled, infused or mixed further on in the manufacturing process. Most commercial suppliers of whey ethanol here in New Zealand are producing very high quality spirit, but the consumer should be aware that not all labels read equal.

We should be proud to be making great quality spirits from whey and then offering that same transparency to the consumer.

ROOM ON THE SHELF

For so many start-up distilleries, the cost of investment far outweighs the first and

second year revenue which is why the most important part of the distillation process can often be finding space on the shelf with a reliable distributor and marketing partner. One model is to go all in and launch big, as Little Biddy Gin have done with plans and buildings for expansion already signed and on paper. Scapegrace Gin is another example of a strong, marketing-led launch.

Many distillery owners take the bootstrapping model which means continuing to work outside of the distillery to varying degrees. It affords some luxuries and stability when they don’t have to rely on sales to survive.

That stability means the push is on to secure distribution and market share quickly, especially as more and more producers come to market. For many distilleries, without a major distribution partner, securing contracts into liquor retailers or on-premise where consumers can enjoy and get familiar with the product requires a big marketing strategy and plenty of personnel hours. Without a significant marketing and publicity push, consumers may never find your online store. So running in-store tastings, building relationships with venues and securing shelf space is vital to sustaining the business. Cardrona Distillery in Wanaka have between four and six sales representatives working across New Zealand at all times, selling their single malt vodka and The Source, another award-winning New Zealand gin.

It’s no surprise then, just two years after launching The Drammys, SuperLiquor has initiated The Junipers, New Zealand’s first gin awards. Already with plenty of entries from New Zealand and international brands, The Junipers are focused on delivering awards that are consumer-friendly and help customers to readily identify and purchase brands of high quality. This continues after some encouraging year on year growth in the number of entrants to the Gin category of the New Zealand Spirits awards in 2020, hosted by the DSA.

“As the New Zealand spirits sector grows as a whole, there will naturally be increased innovation and competition within specific categories as well,” says Soren Crabb from 1919 Distilling. “This period of high growth is a chance for New Zealand to focus and maintain our reputation of quality, as well as building a strong relationship between consumers and the category.”

Here’s to New Zealand gin – utterly unique, emerging excellence. ■