00:00Macal is great. It has so many nice restaurants and stuff that there's always something to keep you entertained.
00:07I guess in the theme of my life, it's almost like a cocktail.
00:11It's a lot of random ingredients that somehow when they're put together, it creates something quite special and it makes quite an interesting place.
00:19And I think the other big thing for me is, I think maybe I'm biased, but Macal must be one of the safest places in the world.
00:30I'm Dan McCauley from New Zealand. Here I am now in Macal. I came here in 2010 as a pilot.
00:41I came here for something different, a chance of a job.
00:45Then we set up this business here in 2020-ish and now we have Macal's first gin distillery.
00:53We started on my balcony at home with a small distilling kit that my wife bought me.
00:58And we made some gin and this was just as COVID was beginning and pilots obviously weren't flying too much in COVID.
01:05And then one day I emailed one of the government departments in Macal and said,
01:10Hey, what are the chances of us successfully opening a distillery in Macal?
01:15We were lucky that the government department that we approached at the start, they held our hand and guided us through the whole thing, which was incredible.
01:23I think the mix of cultures of Macal definitely changed the direction we went with our gin.
01:33I think most Western countries sort of go down a more traditional citrusy kind of path, where we completely went down the herbal path embracing some Chinese medicinal botanicals.
01:44And even now we're starting to explore more with some traditional Chinese teas and stuff, which has been a great learning curve for us, but it's also something unique as well to Macal and the region.
01:56I think Macal is a great place for a small business. If you can find a product that services Macal's unique niche market, like for us, it's the hotels and the casinos, their volume is huge.
02:08So for a small business like us, we can happily move 10,000 products a month, which in most cities would be a very hard feat to have.
02:17We kept pretty busy juggling a business and a job. But yeah, days off again, Macal is small, but you can still do almost anything.
02:33So my days off, I love to drive my motorbike around the south of Macal. There's some nice roads there with greenery, the beach, it's quite peaceful.
02:40That's a great way to spend my mornings.
02:48And then if my wife and kids are not at school or working, we catch up at the beach.
03:00Have a nice lunch, the kids can play in the sand.
03:02I'm a lover of coffee and anything food, more or less. So Colawan Village, which is just around the corner from the beach, it's a great place to explore.
03:13A lot of old school history stuff there. So every time you go there, there's always something new that you haven't seen before.
03:19The evenings in Macal, again, being a hospitality town, there's some amazing bars and restaurants.
03:32The Kotai strip full of Eiffel Towers and mini France's and Italy's is amazing.
03:38Personally for me, I love to get a few friends. There's some great little bars off the beaten track that catch up with our life.
03:44On the flip side, if we want to have a more quiet evening, quite often if I'm here in the evening, Macal being small, I can flick a message to a few friends and within a few minutes they can turn up, maybe play some guitar here.
04:09And yeah, just relax and enjoy the evening.
04:12Everybody else's sky, but why, why, why, why can it be, but can it be more?
04:24Yeah, I think for us, we want to keep this factory operating. We like Macal, the kids are super happy here.
04:37I came here back in 2010 and the idea was to come for maybe one year just for some career experience and something different.
04:44And then Macal is one of these interesting places that the longer you stay here, the more enjoyable it gets and it becomes home quite quickly, I guess.
04:52Yes.
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