Honey Gin: Bees Up Top x Lavender Hill
A unique New Zealand gin collaboration made with local honey and a little help from the bees.
What happens when you combine beekeeping, local honey and New Zealand craft gin? Our collaboration with Lavender Hill created something pretty special ā a honey gin with a story that starts in the hive.
From bees to gin
Lavender Hill is a family-run farm and distillery in Riverhead, Auckland, producing small-batch spirits using ingredients grown and sourced locally.
Their farm is also home to honey bees, with Bees Up Top looking after the hives.
That made a collaboration between our two businesses a natural fit.
Honey from the farm's bees became an ingredient in a unique New Zealand honey gin, bringing together the work of the bees with Lavender Hill's craft distilling.
A taste of the farm
The honey gives the gin a connection to the land where it was produced, creating a genuine farm-to-glass story.
The bees forage across the surrounding farm and help pollinate the plants and crops growing there, while the honey they produce can be used as a local ingredient in products made right on the property.
It's a great example of how a beehive can become part of a wider business ecosystem ā supporting pollination, producing honey and creating opportunities for unique local collaborations.
More than just honey
For Bees Up Top, collaborations like this show that beekeeping can be about so much more than producing honey.
A business beehive can create opportunities for local products, sustainability initiatives, storytelling and customer engagement.
And when that honey becomes part of something like a New Zealand craft gin, you get a product that people can enjoy while discovering the story behind the bees that helped make it possible.
From the hive to the bottle. š
Our honey gin collaboration with Lavender Hill is a celebration of local honey, New Zealand beekeeping and the creative possibilities that come from bringing businesses together.
