Massey University business development manager Eve Kawana-Brown says there is significantly more ground to cover to grow the understanding of local juniper berries’ contribution to the food and beverage sector, but they are making good progress.
As gin producers continue to proliferate throughout New Zealand, the challenge to source locally-grown juniper berries for their distillate is coming a step closer.
Border closures and shipping issues have pushed up the price of imported juniper berries in the past two years, while Massey University researchers have been investigating the potential for sourcing the berries from within NZ.
The researchers’ work coincided with the Great NZ Juniper Hunt, which was seeking juniper samples from across NZ in order to study their genetic makeup.
Since commencing in 2019, the project has received 98 samples from 146 potential junipers, with 47 trees confirmed as common junipers last winter.
The finds extended from near Whangarei to Te Anau, and the campaign included support from garden clubs and horticultural groups around the country.
A gin distilling project in conjunction with Taranaki based Juno Gin has also been under way, with support from AGMARDT and Venture Taranaki.
A key focus of the juniper project has been to determine if NZ-grown berries have different flavours and scents that are linked to their particular terroir and could be incorporated into NZ made gin.
Early stages of research indicated NZ’s stockholding of juniper is fairly genetically diverse and ongoing work to identify genetic markets will help study diversity here in comparison to global species.
Massey researchers have also continued to propagate juniper seedlings, with 480 in their juvenile stages of growth.
The early research has determined there are a mere handful of fruiting trees in NZ, with only two sources providing sufficient quantities to researchers for any analysis to be done on their volatile compounds that give flavour and scent. The research team is working with four owners of berry bearing trees to further analyse them this year.
Massey University business development manager Eve Kawana-Brown said there was significantly more ground to cover to grow the understanding of local juniper berries contribution to the food and beverage sector.
“However, we are making good progress,” Kawana-Brown said.
What comparisons have been done on a limited number of berries has determined differences do exist in the oil composition of the NZ samples compared to internationally-sourced berries, but further analysis on larger sample sizes are needed.
Dave James of Juno Gin says any terroir effects from local berries could enhance their value and the NZ-made product claim in the international market.
At present almost all juniper berries are imported from the Mediterranean.
