Cuisine & Matua Valley Awards of Innovation and Excellence
42 Below
Accolades are flowing for the uniquely New Zealand super-premium liquors of 42 Below. Its vodka recently earned the rating of first-equal super-premium vodka in the world in a UK tasting and a gold medal in the World Spirit Awards, while its South Gin was awarded a silver medal.
What distinguishes 42 Below vodka is its purity. Unlike many other liquors, vodka has no leading ingredient to mask impurities. 42 Below sources its water from a spring beneath an extinct volcano in a secret New Zealand location. The water has achieved the highest possible rating, Aa, when tested.
Founder Geoff Ross says that to achieve an ultimately smooth vodka, 42 Below is distilled three times, washed in spring water, distilled a fourth time, then filtered 35 times. The distillate is diluted with water, which comprises 58 percent of the finished vodka.
Adding to its New Zealand character, 42 Below has introduced flavour-infused variants to its vodka – passionfruit, feijoa and manuka honey.
South Gin also has a distinctive local flavour. Along with the core juniper flavour, a further eight botanicals, including extracts from manuka berries and kawakawa leaves, combine to give a complex zest and earthiness.
Ph: 09-920 9430, www.42below.co.nz
Antipodes Water Company
When Antipodes Water Company founder Simon Woolley returned from six years overseas he was astounded by the stronghold of imported waters in local restaurants. The former restaurateur embarked on a search to find an ideal local mineral water. The result is Antipodes. Bottled at source, Antipodes water is drawn from deep strata of water-bearing rock (an aquifer) in the Bay of Plenty. The volcanic nature of this aquifer ensures the water is naturally filtered and low in dissolved solids, and has a soft quality. It’s highly pressured, which means that although water seeps out, contaminants are unlikely to seep in. Specifically intended as a premium dining water for restaurants, Antipodes has a soft, digestion-enhancing bead and clean finish. And it comes in a glass bottle, wittily designed to echo a wine flagon. It’s the only New Zealand water bottled in glass to a standard acceptable to quality restaurants, and since its launch in December 2003 it has been so well received it is now available for home delivery.
Ph: 0800-358 276, www.antipodeswater.co.nz
BeesOnline
BeesOnline has ‘reinvented’ honey. In the early days it concentrated on single flora honeys in West Auckland. Today, it offers regional varietal honeys from beekeepers around the country, develops and sells a big range of honey-based products for use in cooking, and at its Honey Centre and Café in Waimauku offers a unique honey experience to the public.
Founding partner Maureen Maxwell has a background in winemaking and as a chef, and has long been an advocate of cooking with honey. The BeesOnline range of innovative and versatile products includes a blend of locally produced vinegar and honey – called honeygar – plus blends of red wine with manuka and white wine with clover, and a honey syrup made by infusing manuka honey with citrus and vanilla. In her cookbook, Honey, Maxwell presents a wealth of recipes and cooking ideas using these and other products.At the Honey Centre, BeesOnline offers the complete honey experience ‘from petal to palate’. Visitors can view colonies of bees, observe a working hive and see the production area. Talks by a beekeeper give an understanding of the crucial role bees play in the environment. The café’s contemporary Kiwi fare showcases honey in many guises, both sweet and savoury.
Ph: 0800-466 395, www.beesonline.com,
791 SH 16, RD3, Waimauku
Canterbury Cheesemongers
Martin and Sarah Aspinwall are Canterbury Cheesemongers. They sell excellent cheeses in prime condition, which is rare enough in itself, but beyond this they also nurture the cheeses to these peak conditions. Canterbury Cheesemongers buys New Zealand cheeses, some ma 
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