Written by Mika Tanimoto, Owner-Bartender, Bar Little Happiness — Hiroshima’s specialist whisky & rum bar with 1,000+ bottles
I have visited a lot of distilleries. Cardrona is the only one where I found myself surrounded by flowers before I had even reached the entrance.
The drive from Queenstown takes you across one of New Zealand’s highest public roads — a mountain pass through the Southern Alps — and deposits you into the Cardrona Valley, a gold rush settlement from the 1850s that now exists as a small town with a disproportionate reputation for extraordinary things. Cardrona Distillery is one of them.
Desiree Reid: From Roses to Whisky
Cardrona was founded by Desiree Reid, a former lawyer and farmer’s daughter. The distillery’s first plan was not whisky — it was rose oil. Reid wanted to extract essential oils from the roses that now still surround the building and create perfume from them.
The mathematics of rose oil production are deeply discouraging: approximately one tonne of rose petals yields one litre of oil. The yield rate is punishing. But the technology of distillation — the process of capturing and concentrating volatile aromatic compounds from natural materials — is the same whether you are working with roses or with fermented grain. Reid redirected her passion for distillation into single malt whisky. Her parents sold their family farm to fund the project. Cardrona Distillery opened in 2015 in Wanaka, Otago, on New Zealand’s South Island.
The Bra Fence (Bradrona)
A few kilometres from the distillery, along the Crown Range Road, there is a wire fence covered — densely, colourfully — in bras. This is the Bradrona, one of New Zealand’s more unexpected landmarks.
Each bra represents a donation to the New Zealand Breast Cancer Foundation. What began with a few items has grown into something that draws visitors from around the world, who stop, donate, and add their own. A staff member told me that close friends of theirs had been diagnosed with breast cancer — the Bradrona was not just a quirky tourist feature but something the distillery actively supported with genuine feeling.
When I visited, I brought a bottle of Sakurao whisky from Hiroshima as a gift — one coastal distillery to another. They were genuinely curious about it, and I liked that exchange very much.
Cardrona whisky is available at Bar Little Happiness. Read the full Japanese column: little-happiness.jp/columns/cardrona-distillery-report/
Bar Little Happiness | Hiroshima, Japan
Rum & Whisky specialists | 1,000+ bottles | English menu available
Open Mon–Sat 7PM–12:30AM, Sun 7PM–midnight
No cover charge. Walk-ins welcome.
english.little-happiness.jp