From moonshine still to museum display

• Published date: 17 February 2021
• Date: 17 February 2021
• Publication title: Stratford Press

Scott and his team have just completed work on a project that is a little bit different to their usual work on kitchen benchtops, handrails and other architectural sheetmetal installations. On Thursday evening the team at Rivet unveiled the moonshine still they have created in collaboration with Gore’s Hokonui Trust and New Plymouth gin distillery Begin Distilling.

Rivet was commissioned to build the still after its work on Lila, the 400-litre still designed by Dave James of Begin Distilling, attracted the attention of South Island-based Steve Nally, known as “the beer geek”.

Nally had been tasked by the Hokonui Heritage Centre Trust to be part of their Hokonui Moonshine Museum project which required, amongst other things, a functional moonshine still.

He says the logic behind having a working still in the museum was simple.

“When I got involved in the project, one thing I thought about was what if Prohibition was still in place in New Zealand today. I asked myself, where would you hide a still if that was the case, and the answer was in a museum. Make it an exhibit itself, the perfect place to hide it.”

When looking into still manufacture, he says he came across overseas suppliers, but wanted a local one.

“So I asked around, and looked online to see who had built pot belly stills before in New Zealand. That led me to Begin Distilling, of Juno Gin fame and I saw they had used Rivet to build their still.”

Dave and Jo James of Begin Distilling had themselves come across Rivet through the work the fabrication firm did on the famous Len Lye Centre, constructing the 14m-high stainless steel exterior panels that have become an eye-catching Instagram favourite for visitors and locals alike. Scott says he never imagined their work in an art gallery would lead them to the world of stills and distilling, but he has enjoyed the journey throughout.

“It’s been a great collaboration and we have learned a lot. Some of it I am still learning, like the difference between the rough and the smooth when it comes to the alcohol produced!”

While many engineering projects start with a drawing, Scott and the team at Rivet were working from a slightly different brief — a papier-mâché model of the proposed still, created by Nally during lockdown.

Despite the fact Scott says he isn’t even sure exactly what scale the model was built to, given Nally just said he had blown up a balloon until it looked to be the right size when it came to building the pot-bellied still, the end result...