Cardrona Distillery, New Zealand

Nestled within the picturesque snow-capped mountains of the Cardrona valley you will find The Cardrona Distillery and Museum – the vision of Desiree Whitaker. A former dairy farmer, Desiree sold her farm in May 2013 to pursue her love for craft spirits.

Initially, the focus for the distillery was to create a whisky that was unique to New Zealand, but luckily for us they also decided to make gin as well!

The whole set up of the distillery is focused towards creating
premium spirits properly, from scratch…Including creating their own single malt base spirit. This means they can control every aspect of the spirit creation process to make the best product possible.

The Source

Cardrona’s flagship gin is called The Source and contains a selection of Six botanicals including:

• Juniper
• Coriander
• Orange peel
• Lemon peel
• Angelica
• Rose hip

The juniper & coriander are infused for 15 hours in a 50:50 mix of their in house base spirit and snowmelt mountain water. The rest of the botanicals are then vapour infused over 8 hours to create the final product.

So, what does it taste like..?

The Source is a delicate gin that manages to find a perfect balance between citrus & spice. The juniper is there, but it’s not particularly forward in the flavour profile – it adds an underlying subtle medicinal note that compliments the other botanicals perfectly. There is also a pleasing tingle across the tongue & despite It comes in a 42% Abv, it’s incredibly smooth with no alcoholic burn at all.

The flavours in this gin work really well & its a great example of a modern gin that isn’t afraid to push the boundaries.

Big Thanks

Big thanks goes out to Cardrona distillery & head distiller Sarah who took us on a great tour of the distillery & treated us to a tasting of the whole Cardrona range.

You can find out more about Cardrona on their website here, or get social with them on FaceBook, Twitter & Instagram.

Here are few more pictures from our visit and tour: