FIRST JOURNEYS - 80 GINS AROUND THE WORLD - PIN 41 OF 80
FULL CIRCLE DISTILLERS, Laguna, Philippines
AROUND THE WORLD, ONE BOTTLE AT A TIME,
PHILEAS FOGG WOULD SURELY APPROVE
A world gin tour, even a virtual one, would not be complete without including a gin from what has long been the world's biggest gin market.
Surprise, surprise, it's not us Brits, or even Spain, India or the US, but the Philippines. Back in 2012, Filipinos consumed a staggering 265 million litres of gin — more than all the other countries in the top five combined.
Much of this was driven by the incredibly affordable Ginebra San Miguel, which has become something of a national institution and is still described as the world's largest-selling gin. Bonkers!
Gin has been part of Filipino life for a very long time. The country's first gin distillery was established in Manila in 1834 by Ayala y Cia, producing what eventually became Ginebra San Miguel.
There is also a wonderfully odd tradition around drinking gin in the Philippines, with communal drinking sessions known as ginuman, where a bottle is shared amongst friends and family. A lot of the mass-market gin is also "gin bulag" — literally "blind gin" — a cheap compounded spirit which is flavoured rather than distilled with botanicals.
Trying to get hold of a bottle of Filipino craft gin in the UK was something of a master feat, but Full Circle Craft Distillers changed that for me. Their flagship Archipelago Botanical Gin, previously known as ARC Botanical Gin, is now available internationally and is a rather wonderful example of what happens when you take the Filipino gin tradition and turn the spotlight firmly onto the country's own botanicals.
The distillery is situated in the foothills of Mount Makiling in Laguna and was founded by Matthew Westfall and his Filipino wife, Laurie. Their aim was to produce and promote the very best of what the Philippines has to offer and put the country on the global spirits map.
The inspiration can be traced back to Matthew's grandfather, Peter Westfall, who arrived in Manila with his family in 1918 after escaping the Russian Revolution. He worked at San Miguel's Royal Soft Drink Plant, where he became known for his ability to extract flavours and aromas from the tropical fruits and botanicals found throughout the islands. His legacy continues more than a century later through the handcrafted spirits Matthew produces.
Matthew and Laurie spent four years perfecting the recipe, working with European master distiller Dr Klaus Hagmann and carrying fresh Philippine botanicals between the Philippines and Stuttgart for testing. More than 60 distillations went into developing the final recipe, so this was definitely not a case of throwing a few things into a still and seeing what happened!
Their flagship Archipelago Botanical Gin is handcrafted using 28 botanicals, 22 of which are sourced and foraged across the Philippines, with everything from pomelo, dalandan and calamansi to fresh mango, Benguet pine, sampaguita, ylang-ylang and kamia flowers. Each botanical is sourced from different parts of the archipelago and, rather than simply being a list of exotic ingredients, they are intended to tell the story of the islands.
The gin is beautifully citrus-forward, with pomelo and calamansi bringing plenty of freshness, mango adding a little sweetness and Benguet pine bringing a lovely resinous note alongside the juniper. It's floral, complex and somehow every sip seems to reveal something different.
They distil in their 450-litre custom copper still, now called CARL, using a slow eight-hour distillation, and the finished spirit is cut with pure Laguna water drawn from underground aquifers fed by the watershed of Mount Makiling. I love that even the water is part of the story.
The bottle and label design is just as clever. It takes inspiration from the beautifully illustrated Flora de Filipinas and the work of Filipino painter José Honorato Lozano. Each letter of "Archipelago" represents a stage in the gin-making process, from harvesting the botanicals through to drinking the finished gin, while the cross-hatching and engraved style is inspired by the techniques used on Philippine paper currency. The design won Gold and Silver at the Adobo Design Awards, so it's not just a pretty bottle — there's an awful lot going on if you take the time to look at it.
Ginuman is a Filipino word for a gin drinking session, so I think the only appropriate way to finish this one is with a good Filipino-inspired cocktail. Cheers — or, as they say in the Philippines, tagay!
"A country where gin is practically a national obsession, a grandfather's legacy and 22 Philippine botanicals — welcome to the world's ginuman!"
HOTTUB (riff - Diffords)
50ml gin
50ml pineapple juice
10ml raspberry liqueur
Shake and Top with Prosecco
"Show me a bottle
and I'll tell you a story."