Silver success on world stage for kiwifruit liqueur

Turning gold into silver may not seem the smartest of moves but for a Te Puna family it is their ticket to success.
Irmengard and Michael Deinlein and their son Tobi, who have a small distillery tucked away in the Minden hills, have won a prestigious international award for their gold-flecked Kiwifruit Liqueur.
The distinctly New Zealand liquor, which contains shavings of 23-carat gold leaf, was awarded a silver medal in the liqueur section at the International Spirit Awards in Neustadt an der Weinstrasse, Germany - coming second to the world-renowned French company Cointreau, which won the gold award.
"We're just tiny," a surprised Mrs Deinlein said of the distillery, which has the capacity to produce just 30,000 half-litre bottles a year.
"It's the who's who of spirits."
Auckland-based 42 Below also won a silver medal in the vodka section.
Coincidentally, Mrs Deinlein was visiting Germany when she learnt about the win, after their European distributor entered them in the awards.
"I was travelling down the river Rhine with some friends and all of a sudden my mobile rang and it was the distributor in the phone. I thought: 'you've got to be joking'. I was blown away."
The family enterprise has its roots in a wistful hankering for a taste of their homeland.
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 satiate their tastebuds.
But when they investigated further they realised that they would need somewhat more than a home brewing kit to produce the high-quality product they were looking for.
With Mrs 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.
"We thought: 'Why don't we look into this from a commercial point of view?' New Zealand has the best fruit and such distinct fruit. It got us thinking ... we decided from a marketing point of view to come up with a product in the classic European trend of liqueurs and fruit brandies but with a distinctly New Zealand flavour."
Kiwifruit, feijoas, tamarillos, persimmons and kiwiberries are among the fruits fermented to produce the unique 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 but you are unlikely to find it at a big liquor chain.
At this stage, as their output is relatively small, their products are sold only in boutique wine shops, and at the likes of Auckland's Smith and Caughey, Wellington's Kircaldie 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 fortuitously hit the market in Germany around the time of the awards.
And, of course, the traditional European liqueurs with a Kiwi twist are consumed at the Deinlein residence, a Kiwi home with a European twist, perched high in the hills, overlooking the sea.
"We're not heavy drinkers," Mrs Deinlein assures. "We're quite European in that regard. We will have a sip of fruit brandy after a meal. It helps digestion."