From Seed to Sip: Our Story in Farmers Weekly

It's not every day that our little corner of Southland makes it into the national farming news.

Yesterday, Farmers Weekly published a story about Auld Farm Distillery, and it got us thinking about why we started this rather enormous adventure in the first place.

Because, believe it or not, it was never just about making whisky.

It was about keeping the farm in the family for another hundred years.

A hundred years in the making

This May marks 100 years since Rob's grandfather Bert arrived at Scotts Gap and began the Auld family's chapter on this land.

Grain has been grown here since 1883, and farming is still very much at the heart of everything we do.

But farming isn't getting any easier.

Years ago, we started asking ourselves what we could do differently to give the farm a future, and perhaps one day give our three boys the opportunity to make a living here too.

We knew we wanted to create something from what we were already growing.

We just didn't know what.

A rather unexpected discovery

The idea of making whisky began to take shape after a visit to a whisky bond store in Oamaru.

Among the barrels were old casks from Wilson's Distillery in Dunedin, marked with dates from the 1980s.

Our farm had supplied malting barley to Wilson's.

For the first time, Rob could see a connection between the grain grown here and the whisky it might eventually become.

Normally, we grow a crop, load it onto a truck and wave goodbye.

We don't get to see what happens next.

That visit got us wondering.

What if we could take our own grain all the way from the paddock to the finished bottle?

We knew how to grow grain. And drink whisky.

There was just one small problem.

We knew how to grow grain, and Rob certainly knew how to enjoy whisky.

Making it was another matter entirely.

So began years of learning, planning, travelling, experimenting and eventually building our own distillery right here on the farm.

We started making whisky in 2017, and since then we've been exploring what our different grains can bring to the spirit.

Barley, oats, wheat and some rather less familiar varieties.

It's even changed the way we think about growing crops.

As farmers, we're used to measuring success by yield and quality. But when you're growing grain for whisky, flavour becomes part of the equation too.

That's been a fascinating journey in itself.

The next hundred years

Our whisky is still maturing in the bond stores, and there's plenty more work ahead of us.

But the dream hasn't changed.

We want to grow something here, turn it into something we're proud of and share it with people who appreciate where it came from.

Most importantly, we want this farm to still be here for generations to come.

A hundred years of Auld family farming is worth celebrating.

And we'd quite like to see another hundred.

A big thank you to Gerhard Uys and Farmers Weekly for taking the time to tell our story.