An Angel’s Share: the Spirit Workshop distillery
With a whisky due to mature in December next year, the oak barrels are full of a palate-pleasing dram or two and now you can experience the distillery first-hand. With the team opening its doors to tours and tastings at the cellar door, you can get your hands on a drop or two of some of New Zealand’s most unique gin.
The Curiosity Gin range is amazing in its depth of flavours and variety for every discerning gin connoisseur. The Curiosity Dry is a perfect mix for the Tom Collins cocktail, using a great range of New Zealand botanicals with kawakawa, horopito and manuka to name just a few.
The Pinot Barrel Sloe is a rich aromatic sloe gin mulled in a pinot barrel from Otago, giving a beautiful Christmas cake flavour; sweet and luscious with plum and almond coming through in every sip. Recipe #23 took 23 attempts to perfect and they certainly got it right with 11 botanicals to give it a real floral taste with some orange accents. Last, but not least, the incredible Negroni Special. Wonderful with Campari and vermouth, this drop is not for the faint-hearted, but full of rich accents to power any great cocktail.
The Spirits Workshop Distillery has gin tasting packs of all of these for a mere $45 and you can satiate your gin curiosity by popping down to 11 Sandyford Street to see the process of how gin is made and how the ingredients that permeate such great beverages are blended. Now you can ask the distillers first-hand those aching questions. With plenty of awards under their commercial belt, it’s not hard to see why Curiosity Gin will be gracing the drinks trolleys of some of the best homes and the shelves of wise bars across New Zealand.
The future is bright for the team at The Spirit Workshop. No wonder there’s such a thing as an ‘angel’s share’ – even heaven can’t get enough of it.
