Gin Squares

FIRST JOURNEYS - 80 GINS AROUND THE WORLD - PIN 61 OF 80

CRUXLAND GIN, South Africa

Oude Molen Distillery, Worcester Street, Swannie River, Grabouw, 7160, Western Cape, South Africa

AROUND THE WORLD, ONE BOTTLE AT A TIME,

PHILEAS FOGG WOULD SURELY APPROVE

A South African gin with a taste of the Kalahari and a rather unusual ingredient hiding beneath the desert floor.

Cruxland is made by KWV, one of South Africa's best-known wine and spirits producers, with roots going back more than a century. KWV was established in 1918, initially as a cooperative created to help regulate and develop the young South African wine industry.

Its history is rather complicated, particularly because KWV became deeply involved in controlling the production, distribution and export of wine and spirits during the apartheid era. The organisation was given extensive powers by the government and for many years played a major role in South Africa's wine industry.

Things changed considerably when South Africa began reopening to international markets in the 1990s. KWV was converted from a cooperative into a private company in 1997 and has continued to grow as a commercial wine and spirits producer. Today it produces everything from everyday wines to premium and luxury brands, as well as brandy and spirits.

Cruxland is perhaps one of its more unusual creations.

The gin is made using a grape-based spirit and infused with Kalahari truffles, also known as desert truffles. These aren't actually truffles in the same sense as the prized fungi found in Europe, but subterranean fungi which appear in the Kalahari after rain.

They grow beneath the dry desert soil and can be spotted because they cause characteristic cracks to appear on the surface. Local foragers traditionally know where to look for them, and the truffles are collected when the conditions are right.

Their flavour is earthy and savoury, with descriptions ranging from mushroomy and nutty to sweetcorn-like, which makes them a rather unexpected ingredient for a gin.

The Kalahari truffle is combined with eight other botanicals, including rooibos, honeybush, almond and cardamom, giving Cruxland a very distinctly South African identity. The spirit itself is made from grapes, which is another nice connection to the country's wine-making heritage.

Even the name has a little bit of South African geography behind it. Crux is the Latin name for the Southern Cross constellation, which is particularly prominent in the southern hemisphere night sky.

There is also a Cruxland Black Winter Edition, which takes the idea in a rather more luxurious direction, using Perigord black winter truffle from France rather than the Kalahari variety. I rather like that contrast — the original is rooted firmly in the South African landscape, while the limited edition brings in one of Europe's most famous truffle varieties.

For me, though, it's the Kalahari version that tells the more interesting story. You have a grape spirit from one of South Africa's great wine producers, indigenous botanicals and an ingredient that quite literally appears out of the desert after rain.

It's a gin that manages to make the landscape part of the recipe.