Award-winning Ōhau cider maker Carmen Gray is “crushing it” and can lay claim to being the only woman making authentic cider in New Zealand.

There are other ciders on the market and other women making cider, but Carmen is sticking to her guns by making traditional sugar-free cider, from apple blossom to bottle.

In a liquor market “bastardised” by artificially sweetened alcopops, using only juice crushed herself is a point of difference that is making a difference, as her cider continues to win national awards.

“It’s traditional cider that tastes like traditional cider,” she says.

Even the label proudly says “Not! Sweet as…”

Elemental Cicer has been runner-up cider producer of the year the last two years at the New Zealand Cider Awards, while the pohutukawa-flavoured cider has won top cider the last two years, with other flavours Pear Drop, Totally Oaked, Dry As and Orchard Fall all winning medals. 

Carmen and her husband Wal are hands-on and run the production of Elemental Cider entirely on their own – and they love it.  

Carmen was a chemical engineer by trade and running a government taskforce when she says she simply got tired of report writing.

“It was a midlife crisis,” she says. “I realised that cider making was my happy place.”

Carmen did a post-graduate degree in wine science at EIT in Hawke’s Bay and travelled overseas for five years making wine, travelling home periodically to tend to her own trees. It can take five years for trees to bear enough fruit so in-between times the first cider apple trees were planted on a small block.

Carmen was able to put to use skills she had learned making cider in Australia, France, Austria and the UK as part of her study into honing her craft at home, and the first batch of Elemental Cider was made in 2019.

“It was a big learning curve. It’s what has made me the cider maker I am,” she says. “But making cider was only one part of it.

“Making booze comes with extra food and beverage regulation hurdles, too.”

In 2020 they launched their first commercial batch of Elemental Cider, only for Covid-19 to put the brakes on soon after.

But a leap of faith to double down and bring in local investors that were growing specifically bred cider apples enabled them to import new overseas processing equipment and increase production.

Now you can find Elemental Cider in some supermarkets and local cafes.

Carmen and Wal are planting more “indigenous” cider apple trees in anticipation of increased sales both her and overseas, with the possibility of an Auckland-based plant.

She says New Zealand products have a great reputation overseas, particularly in Asia.

“The New Zealand story counts overseas. It comes with stories of sustainability, providence and value,” she says.

The cider-making process takes eight months. Carmen says traditional cider is made the same way as traditional wine is made, using fermentation.

There are no leftovers. Any waste or pulp is gobbled up by a dairy farmer as supplementary feed for his herd.

“Everything we do has a local footprint,” she says.