About

"For more than 23 years I’ve spent long dreamy summers on Aotea Great Barrier Island in a simple off grid beach bach with two solar panels and a 12 volt battery. It was there in my tiny kitchen I started playing around with mixing G&T’s using lemons foraged from a tree I once stumbled across on a bush walk which I later found was said to have seeded from an early shipwreck.

With time on my hands, I ventured further and began experimenting on a small alembic copper pot still with other local ingredients. After many trials with the aid of willing tasters, who nicknamed me ‘Madame Distiller’, I settled on Mānuka bush honey as the key note and this is the profile signature of the first original Island Gin.

It still makes me smile that something born in an off grid kitchen has gone on to be recognised well beyond Aotea, including Best in Country New Zealand at the World Gin Awards for London Dry Gin (2025) and Navy Gin (2024), and a Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition (2022).

That same Medlands bach is now the Island Gin Bach Accommodation, carefully renovated, and it sits alongside the Wetland Folly, an award recognised pavilion designed by Herbst Architects and featured in HOME Magazine. It was created for slow cooking, open fire evenings, and the kind of time Aotea does so well — unhurried, elemental, and deeply restorative.

And that’s the feeling of Aotea that sits behind Island Gin. I like to think of it as the spirit of Great Barrier Island, made by hand, by nature and by a community like no other."

Arohanui,
Andi Ross
Madame Distiller