Arrowtown builders turn shed into award-winning gin distillery
Looking down from the top of Queenstown’s Cecil Peak, drinking gin infused with thyme plucked from bushes in Arrowtown, Stu Clark admits to feeling proud of his award-winning drink.
Clark and his mate Hamish Bourke were working as builders in Arrowtown when they one day got “yarning” about how good it’d be to own their own gin distillery, a dream not uncommon for the Kiwi bloke.
In 2018, the mates had been doing some building work on Clark’s shed, which wasinitially intended to be a workshop, but became a distillery where the friends now make their Rifters Gin.
By 2020, the pair had bagged a gold medal at the San Fran Spirit Awards, followed by a silver the year after.
They have also won medals at the London and New Zealand Spirits competitions.
“We just got on really well and both love gin and wanted to try this thing. We haven’t balanced [the books] out yet, but it is about going for it. We are proud of what we’ve done so far,” Clark says.
Rifters are makers of small-batch premium gin, which uses botanicals and local herbs like thyme, mānuka honey, coriander and mint.
They started trialling recipes for their mates and after loads of good feedback, Clark says they “gave it a crack”.
The men are passionate about bringing people back to their region after a tough couple of years for hospitality during the pandemic.
Clark says lockdowns and low visitor numbers to the region affected sales, but numbers are on the way back up with the help of local tourism.
On Saturday, the company took two competition winners from Mt Maunganui up to Cecil Peak in a helicopter to taste their gin at height.
They wanted to showcase the area that initially inspired them to make gin.
Clark says the dream is to one day open up a public distillery allowing people to visit and have a taste of what their region has to offer, and perhaps link up more with tourism operators like they did over the weekend.
The inspiration behind the name “Rifters” and their bottles, comes from Arrowtown’s gold mining history, he says.
A visit to the local museum showed a connection between Arrowtown's gold mining history and gin, a drop the foragers made for themselves while panning for gold 150 years ago.
“Our bottle is a representation of this Arrowtown history and the land that surrounds us, coloured to match the lakes and rivers that flow through Central Otago,” Clark says.
"The mountains, lakes and rivers that surround us have captured our imagination for years. They provide the purest ingredients used to make our gin.”
Poll: Would you rather: Christmas in summer forever or winter forever?
Just a bit of a fun poll to get you thinking.
If you had to live out your Christmas days, would you prefer it was a summer Christmas or a winter Christmas?
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60.8% Summer
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37.2% Winter
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2% Other - I'll share below
⚠️ DOGS DIE IN HOT CARS. If you love them, don't leave them. ⚠️
It's a message we share time and time again, and this year, we're calling on you to help us spread that message further.
Did you know that calls to SPCA about dogs left inside hot cars made up a whopping 11% of all welfare calls last summer? This is a completely preventable issue, and one which is causing hundreds of dogs (often loved pets) to suffer.
Here are some quick facts to share with the dog owners in your life:
👉 The temperature inside a car can heat to over 50°C in less than 15 minutes.
👉 Parking in the shade and cracking windows does little to help on a warm day. Dogs rely on panting to keep cool, which they can't do in a hot car.
👉 This puts dogs at a high risk of heatstroke - a serious condition for dogs, with a mortality rate between 39%-50%.
👉 It is an offence under the Animal Welfare Act to leave a dog in a hot vehicle if they are showing signs of heat stress. You can be fined, and prosecuted.
SPCA has created downloadable resources to help you spread the message even further. Posters, a flyer, and a social media tile can be downloaded from our website here: www.spca.nz...
We encourage you to use these - and ask your local businesses to display the posters if they can. Flyers can be kept in your car and handed out as needed.
This is a community problem, and one we cannot solve alone. Help us to prevent more tragedies this summer by sharing this post.
On behalf of the animals - thank you ❤️
Who’s the Smarty-Pants in the Neighbourhood? Let’s Find Out!
I’m not alive, yet I grow with care.
I wear ornaments, lights, and sometimes a star to bear.
My evergreen presence fills the air, bringing joy to the hearts of those who prepare.
What am I?
Do you think you know the answer to our daily riddle? Don't spoil it for your neighbours! Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm.
Want to stop seeing riddles in your newsfeed?
Head here and hover on the Following button on the top right of the page (and it will show Unfollow) and then click it. If it is giving you the option to Follow, then you've successfully unfollowed the Riddles page.
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