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District curator of the Hokonui Moonshine Museum Jim Geddes serves a pinot noir to Lesley (centre) and Adrian McIntyre of Merino Downs.
Hokonui Moonshine Museum has served up a taste of prohibition as the Tussock Country Music Festival gets under way.
The museum, based in the centre of town in Norfolk St, drew in dozens of people to experience some drops from history – and a few new ones – as part of the second 10-day Tussock festival in the town.
The festival started in 2021 as an expansion of the New Zealand Golden Guitars awards, he said.
While the festival was sure to bring the sounds of country to life, Geddes said the museum was bringing some historic flare.
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Robyn Edie/Stuff
From left, Amanda and Steve Nally stand at their whiskey stall serving their guests.
About 75 people visited the museum on Tuesday evening for a taste of the past at the Hokonui Whisky and Food matching event.
With 12 spirits to sample across the course of the night with a chef-curated pairing of wild foods sourced from the Southland region, the palates of the attendees were surely satisfied, district curator of the museum Jim Geddes said.
“We were very pleased. We had three stations with four spirits at each station.
The museum’s roots are in the prohibition era from 1903 to 1954 in Southland that led to the common use of hokonui – or moonshine, Geddess said.
“There were a couple of decades where money was scarce, when we had no operating hotels, so people who wanted a drink had to rely on the supply of local moonshiners.
Robyn Edie/Stuff
This is one of the display areas in the Hokonui Moonshine Museum.
“Also, they didn’t have a lot of money to spend and because there was no exercise on this illicit spirit it was cheaper.”
Of course this didn’t go down well with the authorities, Geddes said, but it certainly went down well with the drinkers.
Back then, the distillers used whatever they could get their hands on and often made their spirits in the tussocks, Geddes said.
“They used whatever flavouring agent they could find, but also when you look at the food people would eat it veered towards wild foods and whatever foods you could grow yourself.
Robyn Edie/Stuff
This is the whiskey moonshine still area in the Hokonui Moonshine Museum.
“Our spirit maker Steve Nally presented some new lines of spirit with oat base, spirits that have a variety of flavouring agents in it and some with a barley base.”
Geddes said there were still plenty of interesting events to visit across the Tussock Country Music Festival which will continue into the weekend, finishing on June 3.
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