Kona Farm Distillery has received the 2026 Metropolis Planet Positive Award in the Hospitality category. The recognition highlights this hospitality destination set in a working coffee farm south of Kailua-Kona. Kona Farm Distillery offers visitors a unique opportunity to connect to Hawaiʻi’s land, craft, and culture. Guests arrive past gardens of native plants and local fruit trees to an open-air tasting room facing the Pacific, where the copper still sits behind glass and the making of each spirit happens in plain view. The project is designed with a regional biophilic approach: shaped wood columns from locally sourced ʻōhiʻa trees and tables and stools crafted by regional artisans add warmth and a memorable story for guests. Crushed, locally reused cinder is used throughout the site to celebrate native stone, improve drainage and porosity, and support plant health. Visitors gather at communal tables made from local monkeypod, and sliding wood panels open the room to the trade winds.
Hospitality and stewardship work together to create an experience that feels deeply connected to and respectful of Hawaiʻi’s landscape and ecosystem. Rainwater, coffee-processing water, and distillery wastewater are treated through trickling filter tanks and UV, then returned to the surrounding crops, reducing landscape water use by 91%. Rooftop and ground-mounted photovoltaics offset nearly 20% of annual energy use.
View the 2026 winners
