Our Story
Situated in Eureka, just outside Hamilton, New Zealand, our distillery has grown from small, humble beginnings to making award winning gin. Early on at Holland Road, we embraced the traditions of ancient distilling practices by employing the London Dry style of gin production. A single continuous process to create complex, yet well-balanced aromatic gins. One distillation, only natural botanicals, no added flavours or artificial colourings. Simple.
Not so simple! If we were going to follow the London Dry rules as a process, we might as well take the next step. We also wanted to be original. So we decided to source only natural and organic botanicals long used for their protective qualities and to source as many of the ingredients we needed locally.
This also meant studying the history of various herbs and spices and there uses by ancient healers and alchemists who centuries ago concocted potions and elixirs using the power of botanicals. To obtain the highest quality gin possible, and highlight the different botanical flavours of our gin, we also made the decision to use neutral sugarcane spirit.
To craft our award winning gin we methodically steep and macerate our botanicals for a short period before boiling them in our custom made copper pot still. The vapour then passes through our custom designed botanical chamber delicately infusing the gin with locally produced organic teas, wines, honeys and fruits to create truly unique gin with a contemporary twist.
We also believe that taste is a personal journey, so to maintain the integrity of our recipes, unlike many larger distilleries, we do not chill filter our gin.
We let it sit in large stainless steel holding tanks to settle for months at a time. This allows essential botanical oils and flavonoids to remain in the distillation, resulting in a more authentic gin, with a rounder mouthfeel and richer complexity.
When we feel the gin has reached it's optimal flavour profile, we bottle the batch and meticulously hand label each bottle with the same attention to detail we give each ingredient that goes into Holland Road premium gin.
Adhering to our pledge of being original, the last piece of the puzzle was our decision to go with a dark glass bottle reminiscent of an old medicine bottle, given the medicinal properties of many of the botanicals we use in our gin, it made sense. Then there’s our distinctive label featuring a 17th century plague doctor wearing the iconic bird-like mask filled with many of the same aromatic botanicals we use to make our gin.
This beautiful hand-drawn artwork pays homage to the ancient healers and alchemists who relied on the innate power of botanicals both as protective talismans and as a source of natural healing. Passed down through the centuries, our label acknowledges how important herbal lore and folk medicine are to those who practice the alchemy of distillation, the ancient art of creating medicinal tonics from plant-based ingredients.