A strong robust build, topped with a head of red bushy hair and a red beard with fair skin, Dr Koteka has a big laugh and an open face, which reminds you of a classic pirate. It’s no surprise that when he recounts the early origins of Te Winery Distillers and Extractors harking back to days of illegal bootlegging that there’s a link.

The story goes that his grandfather, Vakai Koteka Hagai, ran an illegal alcohol distillery from his home in Kaviri, Takuvaine, Avarua in the 1940s.

Grandpa was a wharfie/seaman on the interisland/cargo ships – There were no planes those days,” says Koteka. To make the booze, he used local ingredients including coconut and bananas to create wines and liqueurs, selling it to sailors who came ashore and any others who wanted a drink.

“Grandpa used to make homebrew and the sailors would come home and pay for a drink. The cheerful side of this homebrew was it made life a bit easier…they could have with their vanilla tea, coffee and coconut hot drink, cocoa coconut warm drink with butter and hot fresh bread,” Dr Koteka, said.

His father carried on the tradition, when making alcohol was no longer illegal. Instead, Dr Koteka and another doctor from Burma, based on another island, started to copy the properties of the grape and wine making. “The other doctor returned to Burma, my dad carried on making fruit wines, from 250litres to 1500litres,” Dr Koteka said.

The story on the label of an old Koteka banana base wine bottle says Dr. Koteka began wine making as a hobby in 1994, seemingly carrying on the tradition started by his father. Using bananas as a base, mixing it with whatever fruit was in season at the time — soursop, passionfruit, mangoes, oranges and local ‘vene vene’ fruit — to produce a light white and red wine. The wine was originally for home consumption but word got out and began making wine for friends and family.

Now 84, he continued the distillery making wine and liqueurs until 2012 when he stopped and Dr Koteka, trained in IT and computers, took over carrying on the tradition started way back by his grandfather.

He was part of the Pacific Small Island States Food & Beverage Exploratory Trade Mission, in October organised by Pacific Islands Trade & Invest (PT&I) NZ Trade Development Manager Teremoana Mato.  Representatives from Cook Islands, Kiribati, Niue, Palau, Tuvalu and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) were in Auckland for a week to learn more about the marketing landscape in New Zealand and meet key stakeholders from government, non-government and private sector.

A networking event featuring products from each of the small island states was well received, with visitors tasting pandanus juice for the first time and enjoying the chilli, coconut, vanilla and banana vodka as well as the fruit based wines and coconut products.