FIRST JOURNEYS - 80 GINS AROUND THE WORLD - PIN 28 OF 80
VITORIA REGIA, São Paulo, Brazil
AROUND THE WORLD, ONE BOTTLE AT A TIME,
PHILEAS FOGG WOULD SURELY APPROVE
“Five Go Solar”
I think my sense of adventure and wanting to travel the world came from reading Enid Blyton books, so I couldn't resist the caption for this one! If you know, you know!
The craft gin world has seen a move towards more sustainable practices and this Brazilian gin is certainly ahead of the game when it comes to its production. Vitória Régia is made in a sustainable distillery powered by solar energy, with the distillation process itself being the one part that requires a little extra help. They even recycle organic material from production to provide energy for the still, with excess alcohol redistilled and used to make biofuel and the remaining sediment converted into organic fertiliser.
But it is the simplicity of this gin which really caught my attention. The original recipe uses just five botanicals - juniper, coriander, cardamom, allspice and lemon peel - alongside an organic sugarcane-based spirit. There is something rather lovely about a distiller resisting the temptation to throw the entire botanical cupboard into the still! It is earthy but bright and citrussy, with juniper coming through towards the end. Clean, warming and beautifully balanced, it really does prove that less can be more.
And yet, this is where I find myself slightly conflicted.
One of the things I love most about gin is terroir - that sense of place you get when a distiller uses ingredients that tell you something about where the gin comes from. I've featured so many South American gins on this tour which use local fruits, flowers, spices and botanicals to create something that could only have come from that particular part of the world.
Vitória Régia is different. Apart from its organic sugarcane base and the name itself, there isn't much in this original recipe that immediately tells me I'm drinking a Brazilian gin. Juniper, coriander, cardamom, allspice and lemon peel could have been put together almost anywhere. The producers themselves describe the recipe as deliberately combining British gin tradition with Brazilian production, and the philosophy was very much "less is more".
I can absolutely understand the thinking. They wanted to make a Brazilian gin that could stand alongside the classic London Dry style, while offering something delicate and accessible to the Brazilian market.
But I can't help wondering what might have happened if some of Brazil's extraordinary native flora had been given a place in that little lineup. If you're making a gin in Brazil, particularly one destined for international markets, isn't there an opportunity to give us something that couldn't be made anywhere else?
Perhaps that is unfair, because the name itself gives us our Brazilian connection.
Vitória Régia is the Portuguese name for the giant Amazonian water lily, one of the world's largest water lilies, with enormous floating leaves. As we discovered in my previous Amázzoni post, it is also wrapped up in the beautiful legend of Naia, the young woman who was transformed by the moon into the giant water lily. The plant was named Victoria in honour of Queen Victoria, so even the name manages to bring together Brazil and Britain - which is exactly the relationship this gin is trying to represent.
The gin was launched by Carmosina in 2017 and is produced in Taquaritinga, São Paulo, using organic alcohol from sugar cane grown in the interior of São Paulo. It was the first certified organic gin produced in Brazil and has picked up gold medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and World Gin Awards.
The range has since expanded beyond the original London Dry, with Rosé, Tropical and Citrus expressions, so there is now considerably more Brazilian fruit and flavour coming through the wider range. The Rosé, for example, adds hibiscus, cranberry and blueberry, while the Tropical expression brings in pineapple, mango, ginger and turmeric.
But it is the original five-botanical gin I'm tasting today, and I think it is actually crying out for a classic cocktail. The combination of citrus, spice and juniper makes this, for me, a very good Martini gin - perhaps surprisingly so for something produced thousands of miles from London!
So, Vitória Régia has left me with a bit of a dilemma. I really like the gin, I love the sustainable production and I admire the simplicity of the recipe. But when I travel virtually around the world, I want to taste the place too.
And perhaps that's the real question for this one -
is a gin Brazilian because it is made in Brazil, or does it need to taste of Brazil too?
"Is a gin Brazilian because it is made in Brazil, or does it need to taste of Brazil too?"
The Serve:
I did want something a little more tropical for today's serve, so I've gone with the Chura, a cocktail originally created for La República Amazónica. It seemed appropriate to bring a bit of South America into the mix!
CHURA
45ml gin
45ml lemongrass syrup
45ml pineapple juice
A dash of lemon juice
Shake with ice and garnish with pineapple and mint.
I used the tiniest drop of Holy Lama Spice Drops lemongrass instead of syrup and, as usual, worked with what I had to hand. It was probably a little too powerful and overpowered the delicate gin, but I was rather proud of my garnish - a caramelised chunk of pineapple, which I took just far enough to start smoking before inverting the glass over it to give the cocktail a little smoky effect.
"Show me a bottle
and I'll tell you a story."