First Taste

Our very first tasting menu, included in a small booklet for our guests.

It was our great good fortune that a mutual friend connected us with Vito Ionnece and Penny Dawson. Penny and Vito run Artisan Pantry and Artisan Producers Factory in Kaikorai Valley Road and have decades of experience in the food industry and manufacturing. Several Dunedin food and drink businesses have started out life at Artisan - it boasts superb food production facilities, charged on a casual basis, and Vito, Penny, their staff and other startups and producers are close at hand for solid practical advice, story swaps and moral support. Artisan is a fantastic environment to evaluate a new food or beverage enterprise.

After a solid few weeks of brewing, distilling, macerating and infusing we produced the first products that we felt were good enough to share. On the 30th July, 2020 we invited Deb Manning, founder of KiwiHarvest, Steph Haworth, Acting MD of Next Farm and Sue James, Chair of Distilled Spirits Aotearoa, to come and sample our first batches of gin and vodka made from scratch using bread.

Several iterations and process tweaks later we began to have confidence that we had marketable and sustainable products. But did we we have a sustainable business?