Waitui Whiskey has been part of Kiwi Spirit Distillery for more than two decades. First created in 2002, it was born from an idea to make a distinctly New Zealand single malt while looking back to some of the earliest traditions of whiskey making.

The inspiration came from stories of early malt spirits being aged in the barrels that were available at the time - including old honey mead barrels. Here in Golden Bay, that idea evolved into something uniquely ours: New Zealand malted barley, our own aquifer water and oak barrels seasoned with Mānuka Honey Mead before being filled with Waitui.

Eight years later, those barrels give us the whiskey we know today.

Waitui has always been made on a very small scale. Each cask is left to mature naturally here in Golden Bay, without temperature control, ageing through our changing seasons. And although Waitui has previously been described as a small batch whiskey, in reality we have always bottled it one cask at a time. Each barrel develops its own individual character over those eight years.

As we release Cask 9 in September 2026, we are making a few changes to Waitui - small changes, but ones we think better reflect what this whiskey has always been.

One cask at a time

From Cask 9 onwards, the individual cask number will be proudly displayed on both the Waitui bottle and its box.

It seems like a simple change, but it is an important one. Waitui isn't blended across multiple casks to create uniformity from release to release. Each release is an individual barrel, with its own story and subtle differences shaped by eight years in oak.

As the years go by, we want people to be able to look back at a bottle and know exactly which Waitui cask they have in their hands.

From 40% to 43%

Cask 9 also marks a change in bottling strength, with Waitui moving from 40% to 43% ABV.

The whiskey itself hasn't changed. There is no honey added to Waitui, no flavouring, no additives and no blending. Its character comes from the malted barley, our water, the barrel and time.

Moving to 43% simply allows a little more of the depth and character of the whiskey to remain in the bottle, while retaining the beautifully smooth and approachable style that has always defined Waitui.

A smaller distribution

Perhaps the biggest change isn't to the whiskey at all, but to where you will find it.

Over the years more people have come to know Waitui, but our production has remained intentionally small. Eight years is a long time to wait for another barrel, and there are only a handful of Waitui casks available for us to release each year.

So from September 2026, Waitui will be available primarily through the Kiwi Spirit Distillery cellar door and our website, alongside a small handful of selected retailers around New Zealand.

As demand has grown, we simply can't supply Waitui as widely as we once could. Keeping distribution limited means we can continue sharing it with a few of our wonderful retail partners, while making sure there is still Waitui available directly from us here in Golden Bay.

We like the idea of keeping Waitui close to home. Most bottles will leave directly from the place where the whiskey was made and aged, whether they are carried out of our cellar door or packed here to make their way around New Zealand.

Cask 9

The first release to carry these changes is Waitui Cask 9, bottled at 43% ABV.

Only around 150 bottles from this cask are available for release, and it arrives with a lovely little piece of history of its own, having recently received a Silver Medal at the 2026 New Zealand Spirits Awards.

There was also something particularly fitting about choosing this moment to begin Waitui's next chapter.

We announced the changes on what would have been our founder Terry Knight's birthday. Terry was our Head Distiller and he loved this whiskey. One of our earlier Journal posts records him proudly holding a bottle from the first eight year old Waitui cask - with a fairly enormous smile on his face.

More than twenty years after Waitui began, much has changed around it. The distillery has grown, the bottles and labels have changed, and another generation is now carrying the business forward.

But the fundamentals of Waitui haven't changed very much at all.

New Zealand malted barley. Pure Golden Bay aquifer water. Our Mānuka Honey Mead barrels. Eight years in oak. One cask at a time.

Cask 9 simply gives us a better way to tell that story.

And hopefully, many years from now, we'll be able to look back at this Journal post -perhaps with Cask 30 or 40 sitting on the shelf – and remember exactly where the next chapter began.