Our Story
Our Story
Some ideas arrive fully formed. This wasn't one of them.
The Monarch Distillery began the way most worthwhile things do — slowly, with a lot of questions and no certainty about the answers. What started as a fascination with craft spirits became a conviction: that New Zealand deserved a gin distillery that took the process as seriously as the product.
Why the Monarch?
The monarch butterfly doesn't rush its transformation. A caterpillar surrenders entirely to the chrysalis — no shortcuts, no negotiation — and what emerges is something completely different from what went in. That's distillation. Raw ingredients — grain, water, botanicals — subjected to heat, time, and craft, emerging as something refined, complex, and worth savouring.
The name chose itself.
Where we are
The Monarch Distillery is based in Karori, Wellington — built not in a purpose-built facility, but in a garage. That's not a limitation we apologise for. It's the reason every batch is genuinely rare. Our copper still, our reflux column, our two fermenters — everything is sized for quality, not volume. Each batch deliberately small. Every bottle assessed by hand, diluted to exactly 42% ABV, and signed by the founder before it leaves.
Rare by design.
That's not a marketing phrase. It's just the reality of how we work.
What we make
Four gins. Each one distinct. London Dry — the classic, precise and uncompromising. Blood Orange — bold and sun-warmed, the most generous of the four. Citrus Reserve — bright, layered, built around grapefruit, lime, and yuzu. And Native Forest — our flagship — made with kawakawa, horopito, and mānuka, three botanicals native to Aotearoa and found nowhere else in the world.
Same still. Same hands. Four completely different destinations.
What we believe
We believe the best things take time. We believe small is honest. We believe a bottle of gin should tell you something true about where it came from and who made it. Every bottle that leaves Karori has Russell's signature on it. Not as a flourish — as a commitment.
The art of becoming.
Handcrafted in Karori, Wellington.
None of them rushed.