Meet Ash & Mike Our Founders

We’re Ash and Mike, and with the help of our good mates Sean and Miranda, we’re the team behind Cook Islands Distillery, from the village of Nikao in Rarotonga.

From a dream to distilling Tavake Spirits

You might know us from our lockdown lasagne making days or our old mexican food truck the Kai Guy.

We learnt so much from our first businesses, but we always knew we wanted to create our own product, something scalable, sustainable, proudly Cook Islands, that captures our love of hosting and bringing people together.

We landed on crafting premium spirits using local ingredients, distilled here on Rarotonga.

Starting up a distillery comes with challenges. We started experimenting and refining our spirits with an inherited still and once we were ready to kick things off our copper still was made to order and finally landed arriving after months of shipping delays.

Innovating to keep it local - a world first with rukau

Most distilleries around the world buy ethanol as their base, but that's not easily available on Raro. So we thought, let's make our own, using something local.

The result was a breakthrough: by fermenting rukau (the leaf of the Taro plant), we discovered a way to create ethanol right here at home. We might just be the only distillery in the world using rukau. In our vodka it imparts a subtle earthiness but indistinguishable in our other spirits.

From that innovation grew the Tavake brand, which now produces gin, vodka and golden and white rum - all fermented, distilled and bottled here in Nikao. Each spirit is infused with the flavours of the islands: vānira (vanilla), ara (pineapple), raparapa (starfruit), tiporo (lime), kaute (hibiscus) and pure Rarotongan vai (rainwater).

We take our time with our distilling process, precision is key. We ferment everything from scratch, then carefully separate the alcohol, clean it up and refine it. You've got to be exact, down to the temperature gauges.

From time to time the whole anau (family) chips in with bottling and packing, and getting stuck into our orchard which we’ve planted, even our dogs Scout and Coco come along. Meitaki maata - thanks for reading our story, we hope you try our spirits and enjoy a taste of the Cook Islands soon.

Kia manuia - cheers,

Ash & Mike