For over a century, New Zealand wrestled with the idea of banning booze. The moonshining McRaes of Southland were having none of it.

By Bill Morris, on behalf of Frank Film, June 2026

For over a century, New Zealand wrestled with the idea of banning booze, but Southland’s moonshining McRaes were having none of it. Their story is told in the Old Hokonui Moonshine Museum & Distillery in Gore, which Frank Film paid a visit to.

Life in New Zealand in the 1800s wasn't for the faint of heart, and alcohol was a salve for tough lives. In the 1860s the hills of Otago, Southland and the West Coast were crawling with gold miners, who, according to Jim Geddes, the museum’s curator, “worked hard, but also drank hard.” Hokitika, for example, famously boasted more than a hundred hotels, servicing a population of only 6000. Alcohol became a staple of our society, particularly among men. It was women who copped the rough end of all this drinking back home, and it was they who led the charge towards putting an end to it.

Temperance Societies had been active in New Zealand since 1836, but they really gained momentum towards the end of the century, particularly after women got the vote in 1893. “There were groups who really fought to essentially rid our towns and villages of the ‘demon drink,’” Geddes tells Frank Film. With a weight of voter opinion behind them, Temperance Societies wielded immense lobbying power in Parliament and so the prohibition movement gathered pace.

Between 1894 and 1946, voters in specific electorates could choose to make their districts “dry,” in polls held every three years. In 1902 the Mataura District voted “dry”–– all the hotels in the area had just six months to shut up shop and for the next 51 years, drinkers had to travel outside the district to buy their beer.

It was into this clampdown that Mary McRae, along with her seven children and three brothers, arrived from Scotland in the 1870’s. Whisky was more than a drink to these staunch Highlanders, it was part of the fabric of their lives; a craft traditionally practised by women in the family. For generations back in Scotland, they’d defied a British ban on unlicensed whisky-making by running illicit stills. To carry on the practice in New Zealand was second nature to them, and their moonshine soon became legendary.

The McRaes, say Geddes, built up a loyal clientele of “doctors, lawyers, police sergeants – people who could keep their mouths shut.” They weren’t the only family brewing illicit whisky in the hills of Southland, but their “Hokonui” as it was known, was indisputably the best. An unlabelled bottle of the McRaes’ finest was snuck into a tasting at the New Zealand and South Seas International Exhibition in 1925, where judges praised it.

While a number of McRaes were arrested over the years, Southland juries proved surprisingly reluctant to convict them, to the frustration of the local customs inspector, who had made it his personal mission to bring the slygroggers to heel.

In 1919, a nationwide referendum very nearly saw all of New Zealand falling under Prohibition’s grip. It was only a surge of voting soldiers returning from World War One that narrowly prevented the whole country from being dry.

Moonshining continued in the Hokonui Hills until the 1950s. The last of the bootleggers to be prosecuted was Gerald Enwright—police confiscated his stills and gave them to a local auction house to sell. Enright’s friends bought them and he went right back to business, before finally winding up behind bars.

Prohibition in the Mataura District lasted until 1954. Around the country, local prohibition faltered by the 1960s, but it seemed we New Zealanders were still not trusted to be drinkers. Strict early pub closing times were enforced, leading to the infamous “six-oclock swill.”

In 2001, Geddes and others set up the Old Hokonui Moonshine Museum & Distillery. They were able to make use of the McRae's skull and crossbones logo, which had never been formally registered. Among the many mementos from the moonshining era the museum gathered together was a recipe for making whisky, written in the hand of one of the legendary McRaes.

Now, Invercargill distiller Steve Nally uses this same recipe to make whisky, using traditional copper pot stills housed within the museum building. The Frank Film team unanimously reports the old McRae magic has stood the test of time.


Participants thanks:

Jim Geddes
Steve Nally


Thanks to:

Old Hokonui Museum & Distillery
Eastern Southland Gallery


Archive supplied by:

36945-atl - Alexander Turnbull Library Reference: A-313-1-008 by Herbert Beecroft
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MA_I454805_TePapa_East-peak-group-of-Hokonui_full - East peak group of Hokonui hills ...., 29 April 1950, by Leslie Adkin. Te Papa (A.009528)
MA_I835389_TePapa_Mataura_full - Mataura, circa 1905, Dunedin, by Muir & Moodie. Te Papa (C.013724)
MA_I835392_TePapa_The-bridge-Mataura_full - The bridge, Mataura, circa 1905, Dunedin, by Muir & Moodie. Te Papa (C.013728)
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MA_I835391_TePapa_MacGibbons-corner-Mataura_full - MacGibbon's corner, Mataura, circa 1905, Dunedin, by Muir & Moodie. Te Papa (C.013727)
MA_I416303_TePapa_Beer-Town-Invercargill_full - Beer Town, Invercargill, New Zealand, 1906, Invercargill, by Muir & Moodie. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (PS.001129)
MA_I416861_TePapa_Mataura-The-Bridge_full - Mataura, The Bridge, 1905, Mataura, by Muir & Moodie. Purchased 1998 with New Zealand Lottery Grants Board funds. Te Papa (PS.001490)
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Nevis-Miners-Huts-RW-Murray-Slide-Collection-for-web__ScaleWidthWzc4MF0.jpg - (Public Domain) Hocken Collections | Uare Taoka o Hākena, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
Trevor Moffitt – Hokonui Moonshine Series


Director, Producer and Camera: Gerard Smyth
Second Camera: Antony Miller
Line Producers: Kirsty Cooper & Antony Miller
Editor: Sarah Grohnert
Research: Bill Morris
Colour & Online: Mike Kelland
Audio Post: Chris Sinclair

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