Scottish stills arrive for Cardrona distillery

The Scottish made copper stills, unloaded in Dunedin and on the way to Cardrona Valley, Central...
The Scottish made copper stills, unloaded in Dunedin and on the way to Cardrona Valley, Central Otago, yesterday. Photo by Hamish Winchester/Four D Freight Ltd.
Copper whisky making stills from Scotland, bound for a $5 million distillery in the Cardrona Valley in Central Otago, arrived on Dunedin's wharves yesterday.

Wanaka woman Desiree Whitaker is building the distillery, perfumery and museum in the Cardrona Valley and is already pre selling barrels of whisky, which must be aged for at least a decade.

Her forthcoming single malt whisky, The Cardrona, is being pre sold in 500 litre sherry barrels for $19,500, plus excise duty to be paid in 10 years, and in 200 litre bourbon barrels for $10,500, plus excise.

''There's been plenty of interest and we've sold some already,'' Mrs Whitaker said. The stills would also produce vodka and gin and a wide range of locally sourced fruit would be used to make German fruit schnapps, Mrs Whitaker said.

By products from the distilling process would be sold for cattle feed, she said.

The $300,000 stills, a 2000 litre and a 1300 litre, were commissioned from fourth generation coppersmiths Forsyths, one of the main still suppliers to the Scottish single malt industry.

Copper is used for stills in preference to other metals for its qualities in separating out alcohols created in the slow heated distilling: methanol, ethanol and fusel oil.

The six month distillery construction project, on 3.5ha of land opposite the entrance to the Cardrona Alpine Resort, started a fortnight ago. The stills then have to be commissioned by Forsyth, with the distillery expected to be open by the start of the skiing season.

Mrs Whitaker is expecting her female, full time master distiller to arrive in New Zealand from Scotland soon, making up part of the six full time equivalent positions.

The malted barley is coming from a boutique, family run Canterbury source but Mrs Whitaker hoped that in the future some barley could come from local sources, such as Hawea Flats.

The already consented project will have a 264sq m distillery with two floors of fermenters and stills, a grain silo and water cooling tower, a 200sq m bond store for the finished product and a 252sq m museum, shop and tasting room, the latter for hosting tour parties.

Founded in 1890, Forsyths is in the Moray district in the northeast of Scotland and makes a wide range of fermenters, mashtuns, grain cookers and stills, as well as supplying engineering services for the oil and gas industry.

New distilleries and expansions commissioned from Forsyths in 2014 included the Cotswolds Distillery, Ballindalloch Distillery, Ardnamurchan Distillery and Penderyn Distillery.

-simon.hartley@odt.co.nz

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