Co-founder of Imagination Distillery, Chris Charteris worked in London, in accounting for eight years before venturing into cheese making. It was cheese making that eventually brought him back to New Zealand, working at a Nelson creamery. It was in Nelson that Chris, and his good friend and co-founder Simon, started home brewing beer for a bit of fun. After a year, they purchased a still and cracked into learning the great wide world of spirits.
The philosophy of Imagination is quality through unusual flavours. By pushing boundaries of what is perceived as a contemporary spirit, the distillery aims to excite customers and grow the industry through innovation. The team has an imaginative culture, not restricted to traditional products, and they try to have fun with their creations.
As well as being innovative, Imagination Distillery works hard on their sustainability practices. The distillery supplies bars with 5L reusable containers to save on glass wastage and are looking into launching a returnable bottle. Imagination is set up to use 100 percent rain water, as water is the main ingredient in spirits. All of Imagination's botanicals are composted, and flavours such as strawberries, blackberries and rhubarb are suppliers seconds. With Chris’ main concern being the flavour quality rather than the look of the botanical, quality product that would usually be waste material is ideal for Imagination.
Each year, Imagination Distillery advertises the great Damson Plum Hunt on social media, trading gin for Damsons. The great hunt is to create their Damson Plum & Blackberry Gin Liqueur with 100 percent of the plums sourced from people’s backyards.
“Like the good old days.”
Every year, for the past three years, the collected produce has doubled, however Chris finds they still can’t source enough to meet demand for the product.
Some of the distillery’s biggest customers being in hospitality and duty-free industries, the last two years during the Covid-19 pandemic have been a rollercoaster for the business.
“Being a small company allowed us to pivot in strategy and in the first 18 months sales continued on the growth pattern.”
The recent red light traffic settings has been the worst time of it all, with a whole summer of events cancelled.
“I think we are now seeing the delayed reaction that the rest of the world went through 12 months back. Hopefully, we are over the worst of it and things get back to normal this year and give people something to get excited about again.”
Chris finds enjoyment in the business in learning new skills and getting into the details of how things work.
“Having the patience for quality is what makes a spirit great. Right from ferment through to bottling, each step requires quality materials and processes to get the outcome.”
Watching the brand take on a life of its own, Chris finds the ultimate reward is the dedication of his small team, and the customers.
“Our customers are seriously the best. They are so interactive and get behind us with such intensity and excitement.”
As self-taught distillers, Chris and Simon get great satisfaction from the quality products they produce. Imagination Distillery has won over 30 awards in the last three years. Their first ever gin release, Reikorangi Triple Distilled Dry Gin has won five awards alone from all around the world.
The pair aim to grow the Imagination Distillery brand throughout New Zealand, by continuing to release exciting new products with emphasis on customer experience. In 2022, an upscale of the distilling equipment will enable the team to look at other spirit types and increase volumes.
Imagination also hopes to grow in their efforts to give back to their communities. Each year, Imagination Distillery selects a charity and creates a charity gin, the proceeds of which are donated in a fun and innovative way to raise money.
imaginationgin.nz
