Our Story
The still is staying in the neighbourhood. We are thrilled to introduce the new team behind Holland Road Gin: Bill Silcock and his son, Rob.
The connection to our roots runs deep. Rob has been a neighbour to our founder, Terry, right here in Eureka, Waikato for years. Long before Holland Road was a household name, Rob and Terry were both hobbyist distillers, often found comparing notes and sharing their passion for the craft.
Now, Bill and Rob are taking the reins. We’ve moved the manufacturing just a short hop down the road, ensuring the spirit of Eureka stays right where it started. They are incredibly excited to carry on the legacy of locally produced, small-batch gin that Terry built from the ground up.
What’s changing? Just the hands at the helm of the still. What’s staying the same? The award-winning recipe, the quality you love, and Terry’s ongoing collaboration to ensure every bottle meets our high standards.
It’s the same awesome gin, produced by neighbours and family who have been part of the journey from the beginning.
New Hands, Same Heart:
The Next Chapter for Holland Road
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 their 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.
