FIRST JOURNEYS - 80 GINS AROUND THE WORLD - PIN 74 OF 80
THE ARTISAN GIN, Zagreb, Croatia
AROUND THE WORLD, ONE BOTTLE AT A TIME,
PHILEAS FOGG WOULD SURELY APPROVE
I'm revisiting Zagreb today and stopping by my beautiful bottle of The Artisan Gin.
The Artisan is made in Zagreb, Croatia, where the distillery uses vacuum distillation to extract the botanicals at very low temperatures. There are 14 botanicals in the gin, six of which are sourced locally, with each botanical milled, macerated and distilled separately. Juniper is prominent, alongside lavender, liquorice and orris, with lemon, orange peel, elderflower and olive leaves also in the mix.
Orris, the root of the iris plant, has a couple of lovely connections here. Iris is Croatia's national flower, while orris itself is used to bind and enhance flavours and aromas. It also happens to be one of the more expensive botanicals used in gin, largely because of its importance to the perfume industry.
The whole thing is incredibly hands-on, from the milling and individual distillations through to filling and hand-labelling the bottles. Even the caps are individually handmade, so no two are quite the same. It's a very fitting name because there is a lot of craft behind this bottle.
I've gone with a gin sour, coloured with butterfly pea flowers, with a bit of Rahat-Lokum on the side.
You're probably saying, nope, that's Turkish Delight and you aren't wrong! The sweet's exact origins aren't entirely clear, but it has been made in Turkey since at least the 18th century and spread throughout the Mediterranean, Balkans, North Africa and Middle East. In Croatia you'll often see it referred to as Rahat-Lokum, Ratluk or simply Lokum. The name itself comes from Arabic and is generally translated along the lines of "comfort of the throat" — although the Greeks, naturally, call it Greek Delight!
A little bit of Croatia, a little bit of the wider Mediterranean and a very pretty glass of gin.
See my original post for the full story 👇
"The Iris"
"Show me a bottle
and I'll tell you a story."