Fabulous Smoked Pork Bratwurst

It was the school holidays so our whanau headed to the far north of New Zealand seeking some warmer weather. We found this sailing on a friend’s yacht, the Undine. This is the orginal cream boat from the Bay of Islands. Built in 1887 this is the oldest commercial yacht in NZ still sailing.

Very pleasant weather, swimming in the sea, sailing and more. The search for the ever elusive quality sausage would also be part of this trip. In today’s post I will review the best of the north, iche grobe bratwurst, smoked pork bratwurst from the German Butchery in Haruru Falls, just outside of Paihia.

This is an unusually located shop. As the business card says it is located at 5 Te Kahu St, Haruru Falls Industrial Estate. Across the road is a car groomer, next door is a kitchen manufacturer. This is not exactly your normal locale for a butcher’s shop. It is in a semi industrial area, with no other retail shops. On the main road is a sign identifying the existence of the shop, which was how we found it. Behind this plain industrial facade are great sausages. As Patrick the butcher says, they are gluten, dairy and egg free. The smoked bratwurst tastes fantastic. These are giants amongst the sausages we found in the far north. They family thought they were great. My wife described these as beautiful.

The flavour is a gentle smoked flavour. Below is a picture of the smoker, it is out the front of the shop. They were using manuka wood to smoke the sausages. You could see the smoke wafting out of the smoker. I was told that parsley and lovage are to be found within the secret mix of herbs are used for flavour. Patrick tried growing lovage in NZ but the crop failed, so he imports this herb from Germany. This was a medium ground sausage.

This sausage will have wide appeal. In my view it could be the next NZ sausage of the year, it really is an exceptional sausage. I would put it in the same class as Park Avenue Meats kabonosy, or Island Bay Butchers chicken sausages. A magnificent sausage with wide appeal. Highly recommended.

Cost per kilo:$16.95

Patrick also makes prosciutto, which we sampled. Very nice and a third of the price in the supermarket in Paihia.