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The History of New Zealand Whisky
Every single malt whisky has a story to tell. Few, if any, have a tale comparable with ours. Our history touches the history of New Zealand. It involves our South Island landscape. More than this, it represents the determination of earlier generations to match the finest single malts they had known in the distant corners of their Scottish homeland.
Those that conceived this ambition, unwittingly provided The New Zealand Whisky Company with a limited volume of supreme quality single malt, when they first laid our casks to mature. As, once made, this single malt was forgotten. Time passed. People moved away. The knowledge of it all but disappeared. Its casks of single malt slept for a decade, undisturbed, overlooked, unknown. Some have lain still longer. The distillery, the last such in New Zealand was dismantled. The story seemed to end.
Their discovery is a story too long perhaps to be told here. Suffice it to say that a whisky of a superb quality and unique heritage has been brought into the daylight. It has inspired our aspiration to resurrect the distillery, to trace the original distillers, to do justice to our rich heritage, to recapture and match this exceptional single malt.
We have, undoubtably, high standards to meet. Those that created the whisky knew more than a thing or two about quality. Its maker in New Zealand's most Scottish of cities, Dunedin, used the very finest of barleys. Around them, as we do today, they have the advantages of the matchless New Zealand environment. As they knew, snow melt from the Lammerlaw Range between Lawrence and Middlemarch runs into the Great Moss Swamp in the upper catchment of the Taieri River. From here, the fine peat and pure water were both drawn.
So the story has not ended. For, of course, the story of a single malt whisky is also one that's told in colour, style, taste. And here, Milford will reward you as it has the palates of the worlds most discriminating tasters and enthusiasts. Milford single malt whisky has, it is not too much to say, been a revelation.
New Zealand Whisky or New Zealand Whiskey?
The inclusion or exclusion of "e" from the spelling of whiks(e)y, these days, is purely geographic. Generally speaking, the spelling "whiskey" is used for whiskies that have been distilled in Ireland or the United Sates of America. While the spelling "Whisky" tends to be used in Scotland, Wales, Canada, Australia, and Japan (and perhaps anywhere outside of the USA or Ireland that produces whiksy).
As the first whisky makers in New Zealand were those that immigrated from Scotland, determined to match the finest single malts they had known in their home land, it is clear to see why we adopted the scottish version of the spelling, "whisky".
Some say that, originally, Irish disitllers wanted a way to distinguish their spirit from the Scots', so added the "e" to the spelling. At this time, Ireland exported large amounts of whiskey to America, therefor, those in the US continued the "Whiskey" spelling tradition.