New Zealand Commercial Craft Distillers ?

[APD]

Are there any New Zealand Craft Distillers on the site that would be will to have a yak about the steps they had to jump thru' to become licenced ?

I'm toeing the water before I decide if I want to - or can, jump in.

As I understand it in New Zealand it goes something like;

1) Local Gov' approval, (Health and Hygiene food prep area)
2) Police vetting. Make sure you are an upstanding citizen (or a rough facsimile of one) with no priors.
3) Customs and Excise - getting tax paperwork in order, site inspection and system for paying as product leaves site/bond.

These stages were sited to me by a Customs revenue chappie who was most enthusiastic when I approached them about distilling.
(Hes been the most helpful out of all the beauracrats I've had to deal with).

I'm currently on step (1) and not getting a lot of direction from the powers that be, - I have a basic paperwork application for a food prep' setup, but local body gov' beauracrats seem reluctant to provide any croncrete parameters for what they require in a distillery. (Possibly because they don't know or it falls thru' the cracks as food prep'?)
I seems to be a case of "you make it and then we'll tell you what you did wrong and then you can fix it" which financially ain't appealing.

Any input from any Kiwis that have already been thru' this grist mill and are willing to talk about it would be HUGELY appreciated - thanks!

[kiwi Bruce]

ADP you haven't got a response on HD so far, hoping that my posting to your tread will stir the pot, so to speak, and someone in the trade at home will respond. You may have to contact the NZ Commerce Commission on this one :-
http://www.comcom.govt.nz/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
...also consider there maybe GOV. funds available for a start up, if it's in the right location...like Christchurch or Stewart Island. Anyway, Good Luck to you man, I do hope it takes off for you !

[NZChris]

Look up Distillers in the Yellow Pages and give them a call.

[HDNB]

you still got actual yellow pages there? it's a shitty website here now, but bless them, my mom sold ads for the paper book and made a long dollar for doing so in the 80's and 90's.

in Canada the province (state) licence is the most bullshit and expense. All likker is controlled by them in 3 tier marketing. The health board does nothing with booze, no worry about pathogens so they don't care.
The Feds are the criminal check, post a cash bond and are slow...but license is free!

the municipality does business permits for occupancy, location (land use), fire and building codes and are expensive, slow and complete twats. They are the ones that will fuck you over and shut you down- so first and foremost you got to make them happy ask permission and plan ahead or it costs time and LOTS of money.

The province and Feds you can skip permission and just beg forgiveness because yeah, they want you set up because they make such a long buck on the tax it's insane.

good luck!