Rarotonga and the Cook Islands is a place where entrepreneurial spirit can take flight, and in that opening statement, the puns I have used, deserve a Tavake Gin, Vodka or Rum. Never mind if you don’t get them just yet, you will by the end of this article. So have a seat and enjoy the story of Ashleigh and Mike Steele, Tavake Spirits and the Cook Islands Distillery. 

Tavake, for those of you who don’t know is also one of our country’s beautiful seabirds, and in our culture symbolises ancestral voyaging with its red streamer like tail feather often used as an adornment for our Chiefs.  So, talking to these two I get a sense of taking flight and navigating new waters in business that they may not have had the map for. Neither Ashleigh nor Mike came from careers as distillers but as Mike lets me know his high school chemistry teacher would be mighty proud of him now.

Prior to living in Rarotonga, Ashleigh taught maths at a boy’s high school in Melbourne and has a background in finance. She holds a Maths degree and is currently doing her Master’s in Business Admin at Otago University. Mike comes from sports and high-performance development coaching youth aged athletes, and in Australia worked with a number of different sports codes, so when they came back to the islands, career shifts and pivots were on the horizon, but who would have thought it would start with Lasagna!

Ashleigh explains how catering was their first small business venture, “I couldn’t teach because we had young babies at home. So, we just started making something, we sold lasagnas on Facebook.” She goes on to tell me that every Friday they would put up a post and sell however many lasagnas, or whatever it was that they decided to make. Sales were good and before they knew it, they had bought a food truck.

You get a sense of pride from these two, not only in their story but the relationship they have to the principles that guide them, like zero waste which contributed to the change from catering to distilling.  Mike explains “One of the biggest frustrations for us was wastage and loss of products. Obviously, from a business point, you don’t want to, waste anything, and it was really frustrating when we didn’t sell out, we would have to chuck stuff away or give it away.”

This frustration along with their shared love of hosting people, a dream to build a business that really celebrates the Cook Islands and has the potential to be exported acted as the catalyst. They began to explore business models where the final output would last longer than a lasagna!

The answer lay in preservation, in transformation, and in the magic of distillation. Mike goes on to say, ‘….that’s where this product range is incredible, because once it’s made and bottled, it’s shelf stable for years, you know, so you’re not throwing anything out if you don’t sell that day! It’s an incredible way to showcase flavours from here’.

The two set about experimenting and with close friends Sean Smith and Miranda Doran alongside as partners in the dream. Miranda bringing her background in finance and accounting, and Sean his legal expertise, they formed a team. Many evenings were spent talking, tasting and designing labels.

Starting with Gin they worked to create a spirit that could tell a story through a unique blend of botanicals and offered the perfect avenue to capture and preserve the seasonal flavours of Rarotonga. So, with business plans and strategies they swapped out the steam of a commercial kitchen for the shining gleam of a still, moving from the immediate consumption of catering to the long-term alchemy of creating four soon to be five world-class Cook Islands spirits under the brand Tavake.

Ashleigh also attributes her mothers’ entrepreneurial spirit leaving Rarotonga at 15 for New Zealand to study dentistry and later establish her own dental practice in Australia, her Aunty Sue and Uncle Bobby who have always been there for retail and quality, and her father’s sage words as grounding forces.  ‘My dad’s inspired me a lot because he said, if you find something you love, you won’t work a day in your life. And so, yeah, just finding something that we do together, that we really love has really been great.’  The process of distilling, the chemistry, the artistry, the blend of tradition and experimentation, proved to be exactly that.

The Cook Islands Distillery, established on family land in Nikao, Rarotonga, was born not just from the business plan, but from a profound need to create something lasting, something zero-waste, and something to make their kopu tangata – family proud.

The heart of the distillery’s operation comes from this dynamic duos commitment to connecting themselves to every part of the distilling process. Even the equipment acquisition reflects their determined, approach. While they invested in a high-end still to ensure the utmost quality, they were savvy in sourcing second-hand equipment from local businesses, maximising their budget and further cementing the importance of community relationships. This blend of top-tier technology and resourceful, local sourcing perfectly encapsulates the Tavake character of high quality, low footprint, and community-focused.

After importing the still, Mike set about constructing it himself. Through online videos, manuals and the international distillery community answering his questions, he successfully built the still and now fully understands the engineering and mechanics of it.

Both Ashleigh and Mike are committed to capturing the essence of the island flavours in Tavake spirits, handcrafting their product using the pure ingredients Rarotonga and Aitutaki has to offer, starting with the very water they use, pure Rarotongan rainwater. So, while adhering to the necessary structure of gin, vodka, and rum, they innovate by substituting familiar flavours with island-grown treasures, turning seasonal, underutilised, produce into complex flavour profiles.

Using produce like our Raparapa which you may know as Star Fruit, our Vanira or Vanilla and Ara which is Pineapple bark as some of the ingredients. Ashleigh also lets me know that they have planted, around 50 lime, lemon, and orange trees that will be harvested for the distillery. It’s a particularly nostalgic connection, as her grandfather Marama Nicholas planted orange trees in a plantation on Rarotonga back in the 1940s. She goes on to explain it feels very special to bring that orchard legacy back to life.

The path to finding the perfect recipe was, of course, paved with trial and error. As new entrants to the spirits industry, Mike and Ashleigh had willing taste testers in their collective of friends to provide feedback. Through a process of experimentation and refinement the moment of truth that pivotal moment they recount with pride, was the tasting of their first truly refined batch of gin. Ashleigh explains, ‘Yeah, that was fun.

We definitely had that moment where I think it was just the first batch that we tried, we put it with some tonic, and we’re like, oh, wow, this is amazing.’ Mike goes on to say, ‘I think tasting the first batch ever created was a bit of a like, oh, it’s not terrible, yeah it’s good and we have kept on refining the flavours from then on’. That was the confirmation that their dream was tangible, that they could, in fact, create a world-class spirit right here from Rarotonga, Cook Islands.

Mike proudly informs me that with Tavake Vodka they use the leaves of the taro plant as a yeast nutrient. This really is quite incredible and shows the innovations that the Cook Islands Distillery is bravely forging ahead in. Creating the brand, they engaged local graphic designer Ben Raela to design motifs that connect to the four pillars of their company, Ancestry and History, Connection and Friendship, Local Botanicals and Sustainability and Environment and with each product label a story that is close to the company unfolds. 

The Tivaevae on the gin label is a classic design that stems from Ashleigh’s Nana in Aitutaki, the Vodka label is a graphic artistic interpretation of our taro plantations, and the Rum label reflects tattoo – tatau motif that connects to Ashleigh’s family line.

The care and purpose these two have put towards their business development and future shows a strong sense of identity and a will to innovate.  They are already pioneering a new gin with a colour-changing feature. Utilising the natural chemistry of the pea flower.

Ashleigh and Mike proudly demonstrate to me how this new spirit changes colour when mixed and it adds an element of excitement and visual magic to the drinking experience which I think sums up the distillery itself. The Cook Islands Distillery is leading the way using natural ingredients to create something unexpected and delightful.

Looking ahead, the next step is to solidify the connection between the spirit and the source. Currently they are developing concepts for tours and tasting rooms but both Ashleigh and Mike know that the true joy lies in making sure their product is the very best it can be, and I have no doubt these two will continue to succeed in that goal.

The journey of the Cook Islands Distillery and the Tavake Spirit range is a beautiful, informal masterclass as it were in modern entrepreneurship married to Pacific traditions. It is a testament to the idea that you can create something world-class from a small, remote island, simply by observing and listening to what is around you, honouring the past, and avoiding rushing the process.

Tavake Spirits are available through retailers on Rarotonga and Aitutaki, and served at bars and restaurants across the islands as well as Duty Free and with a vision to take this product far beyond the reef on to the international stage I for one feel confident Tavake Spirits will achieve great things.

So, if you don’t mind a Gin, Vodka or Rum make sure to try our very own local spirit and take a bottle home to bring a taste of the Cook Islands to your friends and family.

Photos courtesy: Zemann & Co. Photography