Gin Tasting Auckland: Carbon Six Distillery
Calling all gin lovers, rummeliers, vodka enthusiasts…or anyone that loves alcohol – If you’re looking for a great activity to do with a small group of friends or you want something to fill a portion of your afternoon then you need to spend an hour of your day at Carbon Six Distillery in Auckland.
This small distillery runs’ hour-long rum, vodka and gin tasting experiences in Auckland for small groups who have a great appreciation for straight spirits. And better yet when you pay $55 for the tasting experience you are guaranteed to take home your favourite flavour of New Zealand gin, rum or vodka in a 500ml bottle! (My favourite was the dark chocolate gin).
Carbon Six isn’t much of a gin bar, but more of a liquor store with which they brew onsite and allow tastings of their products before you buy. You can pop in anytime during their opening hours and buy yourself a bottle of amazing liquor just like you would at any other liquor store, except their décor is cooler and you’re buying New Zealand-made alcohol made with locally sourced ingredients.
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About New Zealand Gin Distillery; Carbon Six
When we were looking for alcohol tastings or distilleries our minds automatically went to many of the vineyards on Waiheke island, but we were pleasantly surprised to find a distillery and liquor store only 10 minutes from where we lived on Auckland’s north shore. Nestled between a hair salon and a mechanics workshop in Takapuna, Carbon Six is a boutique distillery and Aucklands’ best-kept secret.
This Auckland distillery makes a large variety of gins, vodkas and rum all from locally sourced ingredients. As well as their own brand of spirits, Carbon Six also makes and creates spirits for a range of other brands in New Zealand and overseas. Carbon Six Distillery was founded by Rufus Z and Valentin Ponyaev who both organise and run the distillery and the tasting experiences between them.
Because the distillery is run by Valentin and Rufus; which includes bottling and packaging, you can feel pretty confident that a crap ton of love and passion has gone into every single recipe and bottle before it hits the shelves. Only during busy seasons or large orders do they hire contactors to help with the bottling, labelling and packaging. Otherwise Rufus and Valentin are the masterminds behind the whole operation and if the doors are open to the distillery, you’ll find either one or both of them working hard to produce some of the best spirits in New Zealand.
Getting to your Gin Tasting Experience
Carbon Six Distillery sits on Como Street in Takapuna, the Auckland gin tasting distillery doesn’t have any dedicated parking but there is plenty of side street parking or a multi story parking lot directly opposite at Shore City mall.
The distillery and liquor store is open all week with weekends being by appointment only, but during the week you can pop in and purchase a bottle or two of New Zealand-made spirits right off the shelf.
Carbon Six Community Initiatives
Fair Food New Zealand
Carbon Six is a proud supporter of Fair Food New Zealand who recover and redistribute excess and surplus food and supply them to community groups; which means less edible food goes to landfills and more people get fed. Helping the community and the environment at the same time, it’s a win-win!
Switching from Spirits and Hand Sanitiser
When COVID19 shut down the world and hand sanitiser was a struggle to find in shops, Carbon Six distillery saw the opportunity to help the community by switching their production from gin and vodka to hand sanitiser. Making and donating a total of 20,000 units of hand sanitiser and disinfectant to Fair Food who were able to donate them to much needed community groups. More about this awesome work can be read on the Carbon Six website, with the article written for The Spinoff.
The Gin Tasting Experience
We booked a gin tasting room experience with Carbon Six Distillery as a last-minute birthday present to a family member, and it was one of the best last-minute gift ideas we have ever come up with and discovered. We perched ourselves on a bar stool each opposite a wall lined with various flavours of spirits, a small platter of crackers was sitting to one side and a bottle of tonic graced the table in case we found the flavours too strong.
Our first tasting of gin was served while Valentin talked about the flavour of the specific spirit before moving on to the next one, each taste was about 1-2ml in size, this might sound small but seeing as we were tasting over 20 different flavours of spirits we wanted to be able to walk out of the distillery, rather than be carted away in an ambulance. During each tasting, we were told about the different flavours that were incorporated into the distilling process.
Once we tasted around half of the gins we were taken through to the distillery where Valentin talked about the distilling process of different spirits and how gins, vodkas, and rums all require different tools and processes to perfect their flavours.
The flavours of gins we tried ranged from natural tastes like manuka honey, zesty citrus, apple and butterfly pea flower, to the fun flavours of dark chocolate and cheese cake and of course the classic dry gin called Aotearoa Dry. The spiced rum was amazing and was my second choice of flavour to take home, and the best vodka flavour by far was the mango. Carbon Six Distillery does well with their flavours.
Our final taste was of their special blend of Black Gin which included over 20 different herbs, botanicals and fruits to create the unique yet familiar taste. Carbon Six Black Gin was awarded two silver awards last year; one in the New Zealand Spirits Awards and the other in the New York World Wine and Spiritis Competition.
We had a bit of fun repeatedly sniffing and guessing the different scents in the gin, but Valentin wasn’t giving us any clues. Funny enough as I write this now I’ve got the bottle sitting next to me and I keep sniffing it thinking “I know that smell!”.
As you go through your tasting experience make sure you keep note of your favourite flavours because once the tasting experience is over you get to take your favourite bottle home with you for no extra cost.
If you would like to book a gin, vodka and rum tasting then you can simply fill out their form on the Carbon Six website and state your preferred date and time.
Make Your Own Alcohol
Whether it’s a birthday or Christmas present, or a cheeky gift for yourself to have in your liquor cabinet; with Carbon Six Distillery you can create your own alcoholic spirit to your taste! Carbon Six enjoys creating different flavours of alcohol so much that they’ll even make yours. On the Carbon Six website you can go through a selection process of creating your own 700ml bottle of gin, vodka or rum.
As they say on their website; it’s just as easy as picking and choosing your own pizza! The easy step by step form allows you to choose from a list of botanicals, berries and post-distillation infusion ingredients, then you choose the strength of each flavour and even the percentage of alcohol. And last but not least you can choose and design your bottle label. Which makes for a fantastic gift idea if you’re stuck for a ‘hard to buy for’ person. Check out the Carbon Six website here for more information.
Or if you’re wanting to supply a large quantity of custom made spirits or are keen on starting your own spirits brand, Carbon Six also produce and supply spirits to spirit labels around New Zealand and overseas. Get in touch with them about wanting to start your own line of flavours and they’ll be sure to help you out.
Whether you want an excuse to buy another bottle of delicious alcohol, or you want to spend quality time with friends or family all while enjoying a memorable experience then Carbon Six Distillery should be on your list of things to do for your next big event. The staff are friendly and accommodating and the flavours will either knock your socks off or have you coming back for more. The location is super accessible, with plenty of food options nearby if you want to continue your day at a local pub or soak up the alcohol with a quick bite to eat. Takapuna has plenty of side streets, but public transport is also super easy to catch with the main bus stop being a 2-minute walk around the corner onto Lake Road. So there is no excuse not to visit Carbon Six Distillery!
