Twelfth Hour Distillery: The What, the Why and the How…

Learn the story behind one of New Zealand’s most exciting new gin labels. 

It was four years ago that a casual dinner between friends Angela, Pawat and Andrew planted the seeds of a life-changing idea. Their idea? To forge a path outside of their corporate day jobs and do something fun and interesting that was new to the gin industry in New Zealand.   

This is where the Kaffir lime came into the equation.  All three are big foodies, but Pawat’s Thai heritage is of particular significance. The fact that no one had used Kaffir Lime (Makrut in Thai) as the hero botanical struck a chord, and the dream was ignited. The focus being on the botanical that blended kiwi gin and Pawat’s Thai heritage.  The unlikely source of their Kaffir Lime leaves being Pawat’s Mother’s garden in Auckland.   

Another point of difference is the fact that the gin is not chill filtered.  This means the full cascade of flavours, which hide in the botanical oils, are released by the distillation process and are all retained to make an incredibly smooth gin, easily drunk neat.  Although this also causes the gin to become cloudy/hazy, it is simply a common reaction with oils and cold temperatures.    

It took a good six months of tasting panels to determine which of the 22 different recipes Twelfth Hour Distillery would run with.  There was a lot of trial and error and a few wild cards thrown into the mix from gin industry leaders to see how they fared before putting the final two gins to the test in a larger crowd.   

With the winner decided it was time to focus on getting the rest of the product pulled together. Twelfth Hour firmly believe in supporting local where they can – choosing to work with kiwi designers, printers, botanical suppliers and freight forwarders in bringing their gin to market.  It took another twelve months to get the design and manufacture of the bottles and labels completed. And with good reason. Their unique bottle design is something the team hope gin enthusiasts will re-use again and again as decanters or repurpose around the home.    

Even for a trio of newbies, the launch of their gin was full of unknowns - Covid 19 lockdowns and cancelled events such as Gindulgence offered up a difficult set of challenges for a new business in start-up mode. But the three friends had faith in their idea and the courage to forge ahead. Now, with four silver medals under their belts and more industry competitions ahead, the future is looking bright for the team at Twelfth Hour Distillery.   

What’s more, they are also working on new products with the hope that the gin-loving public will be able to enjoy them later this year. 

To order a bottle of Twelfth Hour’s Dry Gin and for a full list of available stockists, visit twelfthhourdistillery.co.nz

Facebook: @TwelfthHourDistillery 

Instagram: @twelfthhourdistillery