Jacqui Gibson

A stay at The Farm at Cape Kidnappers on the Te Awanga coastline means sumptuous comfort, garden-fresh fare and a chance to visit 2500-hectare conservation project, Cape Sanctuary, where you can feed kākā and spot signs of brown kiwi foraging nearby.

With their award-winning and inventive concoctions, Sarah Mitchell and Andrea Marseglia are fast-rising stars in the world of premium cocktails. We learn how they make their masterpieces and why they centre every new creation around the seasonal ingredients they find in and around Napier.

The region’s range of topnotch drinking holes continues to grow. There’s a Parisian-style tasting room serving handmade spirits and cocktails, a brewery housed in a century-old newspaper building, a buzzy bar and eatery in a revamped heritage precinct, and a chic cellar door and courtyard tucked beneath a boutique hotel.

Have a cocktail or do a tasting at Queenstown’s only homegrown gin bar a few minutes’ drive from the ski slopes of Coronet Peak; cosy up in the resort town’s sole agaveria, set in a handpainted underground speakeasy; or chill out in a Scandinavian-inspired, handcarved ice bar.

He’s a beer writer, podcaster and author originally from Westport, on the rugged west coast of New Zealand’s South Island. She’s a digital designer from the Victorian city of Shepparton in south-east Australia. Together, they’ve opened Westport’s newest craft beer bar and taproom in a bid to turn the industrial coal-mining town into a locals-first food and drink destination.