FIRST JOURNEYS - EASTERN EUROPEAN EXPEDITION- PIN 07 OF 17
BOHEMIAN GIN, Žufánek - Czech Republic
A ROAD TRIP WHERE EVERY STOP HAS A STORY
Although I visited Prague a few years ago with the intention of visiting distilleries, it wasn't possible to get to Žufánek. Their distillery is in Boršice u Blatnice, in Moravia, and was simply too far to make it practical on the trip. So I had to settle for a bottle — or three — and I'm rather glad I did.
It was the Bohemian Gin that caught my eye. The design is beautiful, but it was the butterfly that really sold it to me. I knew it was coming home, although getting it back in one piece was another matter. It was wrapped, packed and treated with rather more care than the rest of my luggage, and thankfully survived the journey.
The gin comes from Žufánek, a family distillery founded in 2000 by Martin Žufánek, his parents Marcela and Josef, and his brothers Josef and Jan. They are based in the Moravian countryside, surrounded by their orchards and not far from the White Carpathians, which run along the Czech-Slovak border. The mountains are known for their meadows, wildflowers, orchids and relatively unspoilt landscape, so it's not difficult to see why this part of the country provides such a lovely backdrop for a distillery working with fruit, herbs and botanicals.
The family started out making fruit spirits before Martin's interest in herbs, botanicals and traditional spirits took the range in some rather more interesting directions.
That includes OMG — Oh My Gin, which I also have in my collection. Created in 2013, it was Žufánek's first gin and is made with 16 botanicals, with juniper very much at its heart. The botanicals are distilled together rather than being separately distilled and blended afterwards, giving the gin its distinctly herbal character.
Bohemian Gin came about in a rather different way. Premier Wines & Spirits were looking for a genuinely Czech gin and had already rejected numerous prototypes from another distillery. They asked Martin to have a go, and his version was accepted without changing the recipe. The idea was to create a gin that reflected the Czech landscape, using Czech herbs and forest ingredients rather than simply following the familiar gin formula.
Juniper is joined by lemon balm, dandelion, motherwort, cranberries and other herbs and forest ingredients. There is no lemon or orange in the recipe either, despite the gin having a lighter citrus character. That comes from the herbs themselves. I like that. The Czech connection isn't just written on the label; it is actually in the bottle.
The butterfly on the Bohemian Gin bottle suddenly makes more sense too. It fits rather nicely with the idea of meadows, wild plants and the countryside behind the gin. I tend to notice these little details on bottles, especially when the design actually has something to do with what's inside.
It seems the idea worked. Bohemian Gin won gold at the 2023 San Francisco World Spirits Competition, which is a pretty good result for a gin that started life as someone else's search for a Czech spirit.
Then there is OMFG. I have the 2023 edition, and this is where Martin's personality really starts to show. The name stands for Oh My F**ing Gin* and began in 2014 as a thank-you to the people who had supported OMG. The recipe follows OMG, but every year Martin adds one extra botanical. That ingredient changes annually and is never repeated.
The first was damiana, followed over the years by ingredients including frankincense, ginkgo, catnip, voatsiperifery pepper and wormwood.
Voatsiperifery, incidentally, is a wild pepper from Madagascar that grows on vines in the rainforest. It says something about Martin's approach to OMFG that he is prepared to seek out botanicals this unusual.
There is something slightly rebellious about the whole idea, although I suspect playing with botanicals is probably closer to the truth. Martin has described OMFG as a playground and a place to test unusual ingredients in small batches. It gives him somewhere to try something that has caught his attention without having to mess around with the regular OMG recipe.
My OMFG 2023 takes the story once again to Madagascar. The extra botanical that year was the flower of Delonix regia, better known as the royal poinciana or flamboyant tree. It is native to Madagascar and produces spectacular red-orange flowers. Martin used the flowers in the gin, describing their flavour as fruity, somewhere between banana and mango, with an orchid-like aroma. The flowers are edible and have a sweet-sour flavour, and there are records of them being used to make sweets and confections.
Before you wonder, no, the royal poinciana isn't on the endangered list. It is actually widely grown as an ornamental tree around the world. I couldn't resist looking to see whether anyone else was using royal poinciana in gin. As of writing this, I can't find another example, which makes this particular OMFG edition even more unusual.
There is one thing I'm less convinced about, though. Žufánek has given OMG and OMFG a completely new look for 2026, the first major redesign since the gins were launched. The new labels were created by Czech designer Aleš Najbrt and deliberately strip things back to typography and minimalism. The thinking is that the gin itself should be the focus rather than the packaging.
I understand the logic, but I much prefer the bottles I have. Perhaps that's because they now feel like little snapshots of the Žufánek story before the latest chapter began. I'm all for changing things, but sometimes the bottle that caught your eye in the first place is the one you want to keep.
Put the three bottles together — OMG, Bohemian Gin and OMFG 2023 — and you get a pretty good idea of Žufánek. There is a serious interest in herbs, plants and distilling, but there is also plenty of curiosity and a willingness to have a bit of fun with it.
From Moravian orchards to Madagascar: the story behind a Czech gin collection.
"Show me a bottle
and I'll tell you a story."