Gold-flecked kiwifruit liqueur comes up silver with the Germans

A Bay of Plenty distillery has won an award for its gold-flecked Kiwifruit Liqueur.

Irmengard and Michael Deinlein and their son, Tobi, were awarded a silver medal in the liqueur section at the International Spirit Awards in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Germany, for their distinctly New Zealand product, which contains shavings of 23-carat gold leaf.

It came second to world-renowned French company Cointreau, which won the gold award.

Auckland-based 42 Below also won a silver medal in the vodka section.

"We're just tiny," a surprised Irmengard Deinlein said of their small distillery tucked away in the Minden hills, Te Puna, near Tauranga, with the capacity to produce just 30,000 half-litre bottles a year.

The Deinleins moved to New Zealand from Germany 24 years ago.

Unable to find the fruit brandies and liqueurs to which they were accustomed, they planned to set up a small distillery in their garage to satisfy their tastebuds.

But when they investigated further, they realised they would need more than a home-brewing kit to produce the high-quality product they were looking for.

With Irmengard Deinlein's great uncle having run a small liqueur distillery in Bavaria in the 1930s, it was a natural progression to turn their nostalgic yearning into a business venture.

Kiwifruit, feijoas, tamarillos, persimmons and kiwiberries are among the fruits fermented to produce Distillerie Deinlein's tipples.

The award-winning kiwifruit liqueur is distilled from organic green kiwifruit and, although the Deinleins admit the gold leaf was "a bit of a marketing ploy", ingesting gold is believed by some to have health benefits.

A 500ml bottle costs between $40 and $50 and, at this stage, their products are sold only in boutique wine shops, and at the likes of Auckland's Smith and Caughey, Wellington's Kirkcaldie and Stains and Christchurch's Ballantynes, as well as tourist attractions such as Rotorua's Agrodome and Kiwi 360 in Te Puke.

Small amounts are also exported to Japan and it was released on to the German market around the time of the awards.

- NZPA