Back-to-Back Wins at the New Zealand Arable Awards!

Well, we've done it again!

Last night, we headed to Christchurch for the New Zealand Arable Awards and came home with the 2023 Arable Food Champion Award!

After winning the Innovation Award in 2022, to be recognised for a second year running is something pretty special.

And to receive that recognition from our own farming industry makes it even more meaningful.

This year's awards were held at the Air Force Museum in Christchurch, with more than 600 growers and industry representatives coming together to celebrate the people and businesses doing great things in New Zealand's arable sector.

It's a wonderful reminder of just how much talent, knowledge and innovation there is in our industry.

Farmers first. Distillers second.

When we first started thinking about building a distillery, the idea was pretty simple.

We wanted to do more with the grain we were already growing.

For generations, our family farm has produced crops that leave the farm gate and become part of someone else's story.

We wondered what would happen if we kept some of that grain and took it all the way through to a finished product ourselves.

That idea became Auld Farm Distillery.

Today, we're growing, harvesting, distilling and maturing spirits right here at Scotts Gap, using grain from our own paddocks and water from our farm.

We've spent years learning, experimenting, making mistakes and figuring things out as we go.

And while the whisky continues to mature in our bond stores, it's exciting to see the idea that started all those years ago being recognised.

More than an award

Last year's Innovation Award recognised our willingness to try something different.

This year's Arable Food Champion Award feels like another chapter in that journey.

It's recognition that the crops we grow can become something more, and that farmers can play a part in telling the story of their produce long after harvest.

We're incredibly proud to be part of New Zealand's arable industry, and even prouder to bring another award home to Southland.

To everyone who has supported us, encouraged us, followed our journey or become one of our cask owners, thank you.

There's still an awful lot of work to do, and plenty of whisky quietly waiting in barrels.

But two awards in two years?

We'll happily raise a glass to that.

From our paddocks to the glass. Seed to Sip. From the Ground Up.

Rob & Toni