GINUMAN IN A HOT TUB!

Day 41 #virtualworldgintour

A world gin tour, even a virtual one, would not be complete without including a gin from the world's largest gin market.  Surprise surprise, it's not us Brits, or even Spain, India or the US, but rather the Philippines, who in 2012 purchased 265 million litres of gin, more than all of the aforementioned countries combined.  This is largely driven by very affordable Philippines-based Ginebra San Miguel, which globally outsells Gordon's by more than 400%.  The forecast growth since these stats were published was 5.3% between 2013-2018 and 3.8% 2018-2023, which sees the Philippines still making up around 43% of global sales of gin. Bonkers!

But why?  In the 1700s Manila was occupied by the British and given they were all quaffing their G&Ts, it set a trend and in 1834, the first gin distillery, Ayala Distillery, was established in Manila. Gin is really cheap for Filipinos to drink, costing the same per litre as beer, which is why it sells so well.  Drinking is also deeply embedded in the Filipino culture and traditionally the first shot of gin from a bottle is poured onto the floor to share with ancestral spirits.  A lot of what is produced though is "gin bulag" - blind gin - pretty cheap and nasty stuff that is compounded and artificially flavoured. Ha! Managed to get bathtub in for the #ginadaymay prompt but there is actually a cocktail called a Hot Tub (Diffords) and so I've made a riff of it for today's prompt and post!

50ml gin

50ml pineapple juice

10ml raspberry liqueur

Shake and Top with Prosecco

Trying to get hold of a bottle of Filipino gin in the UK was a master feat, but the award-winning ARC Botanical Gin from Full Circle Distillers is available here now!  

Full Circle Distillery is situated in the foothills of Mount Makiling and they aim to produce and promote the best of what the Philippines has to offer.  Matthew Westfall is the distiller of this award-winning brand and he and his Filipino wife, Laurie aim to put the Philippines on the global spirits map.  Their inspiration can be traced back to Matthew's grandfather, Peter Westfall, who arrived from Germany in 1918 and started working for the San Miguel Brewery in their soft drink plant.  He was a master at extracting flavours and aromas from many tropical fruits and botanicals found in abundance on the islands and his legacy continues over a century later, through the handcrafted, artisanal spirits that Matthew creates in his 450 litre copper pot still "Maddie" - spirits which celebrate the island's rich flora with each sip.  The recipe was perfected with the help of Europe's leading master distiller, Dr Klaus Hagmann - a process which involved carrying suitcases of fresh botanicals from the Philippines to Stuttgart and then taking bottles of gin home to Manila to be taste-tested.  The process of perfecting the recipe took over 4 years.

Their flagship ARC Botanical is handcrafted using 28 exotic botanicals, of which 22 are sourced locally and blended with pure Laguna water drawn from underground aquifers. Each of the 22 local botanicals are sourced by working with farmers in different provinces of the archipelago and combines to tell a story and bring you the true taste of the islands.  It's beautifully citrus forward with pomelo and calamansi bringing lots of crisp freshness.  Fresh mango offers the sweetness and juniper seems to hold all the way through to a fairly dry finish, possibly aided by the addition of fresh Benguet pine buds.  It's also quite floral and with all the botanicals included, there's actually quite a lot going on and each sip is a new experience! It louches beautifully when chilled, evidence of all the botanical oils.

The label design and branding is stunning and takes inspiration from an illustrated edition of Flora de Filipinas and Filipino born painter Jose Honorato Lozano.  Each letter of the word Archipelago depicts the process of gin making - from harvest to drinking.  It's so beautifully illustrated and also so very clever as they use cross-hatching and engraving, which is a technique commonly used on paper currency.  This clever design by @andahalfph won Gold and Silver in the Adobo Design Awards in 2019.

*Ginuman - a Filipino word which means a gin drinking session

PEACE & TRANQUILITY

DAY 42 #virtualworldgintour

Etsu Gin originates from the most northern distillery in Japan, Asahikawa, on the Northern Island of Hokkaido. This is the least populated of all of the islands and is cooler in summer than the rest of Japan and if you are a skier, this is where you would be heading in winter. Asahikawa is Hokkaido's second-largest city and is set against a beautiful backdrop of mountains and forests. Nearby you also have beautiful lavender and flower fields and plenty of hiking trails to explore. Asahikawa is also famous for it's wood crafts and traditional dyeing and weaving, disciplines which take time and patience and so when you look at the branding around Etsu Gin, you can start to understand what it's all about.

Of course, Yuzu is going to feature and quite prominently and they also include green bitter orange peel, sansho pepper and tea leaves along with traditional #botanicals (ehm...the prompt for today's ginadaymay). As with many gins, in order to extract the best from the botanicals, some are macerated and then distilled in a copper still and then diluted with local water. In this case, they use precious water from the nearby Taisetsu Mountains and also charcoal filter for optimal purity.  Etsu means pleasure and this gin is certainly a joy to drink. 

Interestingly yuzu is not only used for cooking and perfumes, but also for ritualistic baths in Toji, the winter solstice, which is the peak of the yuzu season. This ritual is seen as not just medicinal, but also pleasurable as Yuzu oil contains nomilin, which provides a relaxation effect and promotes circulation, just what I need to continue my journey around the world.

It's the most beautifully presented bottle, with a geisha peacefully sitting on a golden lotus blossom with the mountains in the background. She has a Shinto shrine on her head to reflect Japan's religion and she looks to be meditating and holding in her hands a repeating reflection of herself. The infinity image promotes tranquillity and mindfulness and ties the branding together beautifully.

I'm a bit late for #starwarsday as it's been a real juggle to fit #ginadaymay into my posts too!  Finding a pretty Star Wars related cocktail to go with my Etsu gin was difficult, but I've gone with a Blue Milk of Tatooine, served in a Nick&Nora, rather than a collins glass!

50ml gin

10ml blue curacao

15ml lime juice

20ml pineapple juice

10ml orgeat

10ml vanilla syrup

25ml coconut cream

KANJI 

There are gin bottles in my collection that I am just not opening - sorry guys, this is one of them!  I'm very unlikely to be able to replace it, so when I do open it, I am going to want to enjoy it to the fullest and opening it during this 80 day tour is not the right time!  However, the #ginadaymay prompt is "pair", so if I was to open it, I'd definitely be enjoying some Washoku with it.  You're probably saying "huh?", but do read on!  

My eldest is learning Japanese in advance of a trip there and I questioned him as to what Wa meant, as I couldn't find it when googling.  It's apparently a Kanji word and it means peace, harmony, tranquility or serenity, but it also can mean Japanese.  Shoku means food, or to eat - hence Washoku means Japanese-style food or cuisine.

Kanji are adopted Chinese characters that are used in the Japanese writing system and they are used alongside hiragana and katakana.  Kanji literally means Han or Chinese characters and it's widely used as it takes up less space than writing in the other two systems, which are phonetic.  Kanji symbols represent whole words or ideas and they are believed to have originated in China.  They were used in Japan as well until around the 8th century AD when the Japanese started to change them to make more sense with existing Japanese grammar, and so katakana and hiragana were born.

Japan and China are the last two countries who rely on kanji for literacy.  It was used in Korea and Vietnam  as well, but these countries have moved to a phonetic alphabet as well.  So now that the language lesson is out of the way, let me tell you what I know about Wa Gin!

Wa Gin was distilled by Meiri Shurui in the Ibaragi prefecture north of Tokyo.  and a very limited number of bottles was released at the end of 2017.  To create this very special gin, instead of focussing on Japanese botanicals, they have used 10 year old sake and vacuum distilled it with seven botanicals, including juniper, lemon and orange peel, yuzu and cinnamon and then bottled it at 45% ABV.

Due to the sake base, they claim this makes it one of the oldest gins released in Japan and is marketed as a premium brand.  The presentation is beautiful, with a traditional Japanese Ukiyoe style design on the labels.  Ukiyoe paintings usually depict romantic landscapes and travel scenes and this image is by Hiroshige Utagawa (1797-1858), who was the last great master in traditional woodblock printing. It's called Suijin Shrine and Massaki on the Sumida River, from the series One Hundred Famous Views of the Edo, 1856.

Kanpai!

THE BEAUTY OF THE SEASONS

This amazing bottle was a special treat to myself - a rather rare Edition K from the Kyoto Distillery.  Only 1800 bottles were ever released of this edition, so when I saw it, I grabbed a bottle pronto!  As I'm not yet well acquainted with the range from Ki No Bi, it's sealed for now, but having done all the research for this post, I think I'm ready to dive in and add a few new bottles to my collection!

The Kyoto Distillery have several gin editions and they have also collaborated with international distilleries too eg Kyrö and Four Pillars.  The Edition K has been aged in American oak barrels previously used at the Kilchoman Distillery on Islay, for single malt whiskey. The recommended serve is a smoky negroni or as a ginger highball - both sound delicious and would definitely have been my choice for an aged gin serve.  But what's in my glass? It's a dry martini with a lemon twist, using a ginswap from ginpal Sarah, which I should have tried ages ago, and although it's not from the Kyoto Distillery, as they've recently collaborated with Four Pillars (which I featured just a few days ago), I thought I'd get away with including the FourPillars x Hernö collab - Dry Island Gin! Also....erm....it meets the brief for today's #ginadaymay - Martini!

The Kyoto Distillery is the first dedicated artisanal gin distillery in Kyoto and was founded in 2014 by David Kroll, Noriko Tsunoda Kroll and Marcin Miller. After 2 years of research, they launched their first gin  - Ki No Bi Kyoto Dry Gin - in October 2016.  Both David and Marcin are no strangers to the spirits industry and with the addition of Alex Davies, a Heriot Watt graduate who has worked for Chase and Cotswolds, the team have certainly made an impact on the Japanese craft gin industry.  Pernod Ricard made a significant investment in the Kyoto Distillery a year ago, which will be used to build a new distillery - hopefully opening sometime in 2022.  They are in good company with Pernod's other premium brands - Monkey47, Beefeater, Plymouth, Inverroche and Malfy.

They focus on using local botanicals which they group into 6 elements and distill separately using a rice-based spirit, which in comparison to other base spirits, is expensive but also slightly sweet, clean and delicate so it doesn't overpower the botanicals.   They use different size stills for each group of botanicals, with the citrus elements being distilled in their 450l still, but the other elements in smaller stills - it's all about the ratios used when blending.  The 6 different distillates are then blended with filtered underground Fushimi water which they collect weekly from a well at one of the oldest saki breweries.  The botanicals are carefully sourced through collaboration with local Kyoto businesses and craftsmen and as they are available at different times across the year, they are prepared and frozen, to ensure they have supply to distill year round.  Some botanicals have to be sourced from several farms eg yuzu, so the separate distillation of the botanical groups helps maintain consistency and enables them to get the best from each botanical.  Only juniper and orris are imported and the other botanicals they use are grown in Japan.

Their current distillery is extremely compact and their freezers understandably take up a lot of space too.  But it's their new visitor centre, The House of Ki No Bi that you really need to explore on their website and social media - it's absolutely stunning and would be a dream to visit.  It is located in Kyoto city centre in a renovated traditional Machiya townhouse which is over 100 years old.  Previously a timber mill, they have preserved many of the original features and filled the interior with beautifully handmade wooden furniture and traditional Nishijin fabric.  It houses a bar, tasting room, exhibitions with history on the botanicals they use, a gin school and they even serve light meals.  

A last mention about their chic packaging and design, which is based on the traditional gold and silver designs of karakami, used on washi papers for Japanese sliding doors (if you read my previous post, you will remember that Wa means Japanese and of course Shi means paper).  Their branding was designed by Kira Karacho, the oldest karakami shop in Japan, established in 1624.  The woodblock used to create the designs on the bottles and packaging, dates back to the 17th century and features berries and fruit, which represent the botanicals used in Ki No Bi.  The bespoke bottles are made by Sakai Glass and each bottle is hand filled at the distillery.  

BOTANICAL HEAVEN

Today's #ginadaymay prompt is environment and there are many interpretations for this, especially when discussing how distilleries are moving towards more sustainable practices and trying to reduce their impact on the local environment.  I'm however going to focus on the local environment in Hiroshima, which makes Sakurao Gin so special!

Chugoku Jozo has been around since 1918 and is known for producing Togouchi whisky and just shy of their centennial celebrations, they decided to start distilling gin at a new Sakurao Distillery and have already clocked up a few awards.  The distillery is located on the coast next to the Seto Inland Sea and opposite the world heritage site, Miyajima Island - a small island in Hiroshima Bay, known for it's forests and ancient temples.  Miyajima is quite a special place, where the plants have adapted well to the harsh climate.  You can roam around the primeval forests, walk along the coast with the tame local deer for company, take the cable car up Mount Misen or stroll around the shopping arcades and grab a bite to eat at the 100s of restaurants in the town centre.  It's one of Japan's most visited tourist spots and the distillery works closely with Unesco on various environmental projects around the island and regularly joins planting parties and beach cleanups.

Sakurao Original Gin is small batch distilled, using 9 aromatic botanicals which are sourced in Hiroshima and it's bottled at 47% ABV.   This is a gin that is not shouting to be anything other than what it is - classic. It's citrus forward, not too much juniper on the nose but it's there and it has a long spicy finish and there's no frills about it.  The gin is distilled using a combination of steeping and vapour distillation. It's packed with citrus, including green lemon, bitter orange, yuzu, sweet orange and also Japanese Cypress, Green Tea, Red Perilla and Ginger.

Their range also includes the annual Limited Edition Sakurao Hamagou, which includes hamagou handpicked with special permission in midsummer along the coast around Miyajima and also Sakurao Limited  which is their second expression and is made using 17 locally sourced ingredients, including green tea, cherry blossom, ginger, wasabi, yuzu, orange, shiso leaves, as well as ground oyster shells, which capture the sea air and add salinity to the gin.  They also use local Hiroshima juniper for this edition - and use the berries and stems.

Sakurao Hamagou uses the fragrant, vibrant purple flowers alongside local rosemary, shiranui (citrus), lavender, green tea and spearmint.  The 2018 edition is sold out, but I have a very special bottle of 2019 which I will eventually open and if you are interested, they are releasing their third batch 2020!  Hamagou has historically been used as incense and has a refreshing herbal fragrance.  If you look closely on the bottle, you will see the famous orange-red Great Torii Gate, which is partially submerged at high tide and marks the entrance to the Itsukushima Shrine which was built in the 12th Century.  

TORII GATE

50ml Sakurao Original Gin

15ml Spritz Syrup (or Campari)

15ml Dry Vermouth

30ml Blood Orange Juice

BRIDGING EAST AND WEST

“ My goal was to create a gin with a strong personality, to echo Japan’s openness to the world in the 1920s. ”

Kimio Yonezawa

Before I get to the gin today, a bit about the location!  The Akashi Kaikyo Bridge links Kobe on the mainland of Honshu to Iwaya on Awaji Island and really is an engineering wonder.  This bridge has the longest central span of any suspension bridge in the world and spans the Akashi Strait.  It's a pretty dangerous waterway with frequent storms and very strong tidal currents, which is why the bridge was constructed.  It measures 1991m in length - the extra 1m is because during construction there was a major earthquake measuring 6.9 (1995 - The Great Hanshin Earthquake) which moved the towers that had been erected.  It cost about US$4.3billion to construct and to recoup this cost, drivers are charged a toll of around US$20 to cross it.  Stats from 2016 state that approximately 23,000 cars cross it per day!  There is a lot of criticism around the toll charges in Japan, with many saying they are far too high.  There is low ridership on some roads and this has meant some tolls have had to be slashed and payback periods for the debt to be extended.  

The other interesting bridge which you've possibly seen on social media and dubbed the Rollercoaster Bridge is the Eshima Ohashi bridge, stretches about 1mile in length - it's all camera angles though that make it look that steep, but it's a top attraction as well. But enough about bridges, let's talk gin!

The Kaikyo Distillery is located in Akashi City and 135°East Hyogo Dry Gin is named after the 135° East meridian which crosses the city but is also inspired by  the Taisho period.  During Emperor Taisho's reign, Japan modernised its economy and became more westernised.  There were many dramatic changes during this period which impacted on Japanese lifestyle.  WW1 resulted in a boom in exports and the country became more industrialised, but afterwards there was the great depression.  There were rice riots due to the rising price of rice and mass movements to demand democracy and then in 1923 the Great Kanto Earthquake. 

This was an opportunity for Tokyo and Yokohama to become more modern cities, with western style buildings and an office culture.  Even food was inspired by the west.  The Japanese-Western cuisine that developed as a result was known as Yoshuku - a style of food that suited Japanese tastes.  This period also brought radio broadcasting, records, pop songs and even architecture blended the traditional with a more modern western style.  Japanese women also had a better chance of having a professional career during this period and a distinct style of clothing and hair styles developed.  

East Hyogo honours the Taisho period by using 3 traditional western botanicals with 5 Japanese botanicals, which they source from small local producers.  These are vapour distilled separately, blended and crowned with a splash of sake distillate.  I've tried it with both indian tonic and elderflower tonic and I think the softer floral notes of the elderflower tonic work better to soften the sansho pepper and highlight the yuzu, so this serve is a very simple G&T, crowned with a plum fan and cherry blossoms.

THE RARE AND THE UNUSUAL

I love travelling and I love gin - simples!   Over lockdown I've also rediscovered my love for research and writing.  We haven't been able to travel, so last year I did a very quick virtual round the world in the week before World Gin Day and something just clicked with me.  With each post I did, I got more and more into not only the gin and brands I wrote about, but also the location, backstories, history and folklore and it became a project for me to discover more about my gin collection. 

I buy what I like or what's rare and unusual and a lot of the time I don't know much about the gin or brand, but it's been recommended or has a few award stickers on the bottle - but a gin is more than what it tastes like, as even that is subjective.  Therefore, I've found the stories way more interesting.  It's easy to visit local distilleries and get the info firsthand, but not so easy when the brands are further afield or are abroad, so I've done a lot of desk research, which has turned into these virtual tours.  There is a story attached to every bottle and I find that fascinating and for those of you who are following along and reading my posts - thank you!  I'm doing what makes me happy and love sharing my research and collection with you all.  Most of you are here for just the pictures and that's fine too - I've also enjoyed upping my photo game and getting to grips with a proper camera!

When I picked up these bottles of Juju Japanese Craft Gin I had never seen them before, but a quick google and they seemed to be ok - different to the London Drys we are accustomed to, but I took a punt on them, despite the name!  I'm sure you've heard the term in a totally different context, referring to bad vibes and we all know that around the time of the gin craze, gin was really bad juju!  However, in Japan the meaning for Juju is "to give and receive". 

Juju is distilled by Hamada Syuzo in Kagoshima.  They are traditional shochu distillers, established 150 years ago and who joined the Japanese craft gin scene around 2018 and they use their own shochu as the spirit base.  I've a lot to learn about sake or shochu but understand that sake is brewed and shochu is distilled and this makes a huge difference to the ABV, with sake usually around 15%, while shochu is slightly higher at around 20-25% but it can be redistilled to reach around 40-45%.  Shochu is usually drunk neat, on the rocks or with a little water or soda and in winter it's even enjoyed with a bit of hot water, but bartenders find that its robust flavours also hold up really well in cocktails. 

Kagoshima is considered the birthplace of shochu and also home to a myriad of sweet potato and sugar cane farms, which supply the raw ingredients to the distilleries.  Shochu begins with rice which is fermented with koji and then sweet potato, brown sugar or other approved ingredients are added to give the shochu its own distinctive flavour, before it's distilled just once.

The shochu base makes this gin unique and they infuse it with 7 different botanicals, including yuzu, chamomile and orange peel and it is bottled at 38% ABV (the Plum Blossom is bottled at 40%).  Given the base spirit, they recommend serving this up with soda rather than tonic.  In fact, they actually sell RTDs of this in Japan as "Sparkling Gin".  The Plum Blossom of course focusses heavily on sweet and fruity plums and is perfect on the rocks or in cocktails.  I've always drunk Plum Wine with soda water, so things are starting to make sense for me!

Kagoshima is a seaside city on Kyushu Island with a beautiful backdrop of Sakurajima.  This active volcano has lava trails which have connected it to the Osumi Peninsula and the fertile soils are perfect for growing sweet potatoes.  It is said to be the most active volcano in the world and so is widely monitored, but the last big eruption was in 1914.  The area is also famous for having the world's smallest satsumas and largest radishes, a totally incomprehensible local dialect and the last true samurai - a local figure held in high regard and who was the inspiration for the movie of the same name.  A last fun fact - It is also the southernmost bullet train station!

RAGING WAVES - A HIDDEN GEM

I cannot move on to the next destination before an honorary Japanese post, featuring the amazing Hidden Curiosities Gin.  Although this gin hails from Surrey UK, where Jenny works closely with Silent Pool Distillers to create her special recipe, it is inspired by all things Japan, where she lived for five and a half years.  During her time there, Jenny explored and learned more about the unique flavours of local botanicals, food and fragrances.   Some of her favourite places to visit include Kyoto, Yokohama and Hokkaido, which is famous for it's lavender fields and is where she sources the lavender for her gin.  It's a deep and intense coloured lavender which she tells me is more candied and violet-like than our local lavender and all the Japanese botanicals she includes in the botanical lineup, have a personal significance to her.

Jenny didn't start out making gin.  She founded the Cravat Club and sells the most beautifully designed cravats, one of which inspired the name for Hidden Curiosities Gin and which she uses on the back of the label for her handcrafted gin.  Hidden Curiosities was born out of being bored of the same gin flavours and so Jenny was inspired to create her own after she returned from her time in Japan.  She wanted to create something that was unique but also personal to her and a gin that stood out from the crowd.  Oh boy, did she succeed. 

I recall my first sip of Aranami Strength Gin and honestly it blew me away.  It has won several awards, including Best English Navy in 2020.  It's bottled at a whopping 59% and uses 20 botanicals, 7 of which are sourced in Japan. Not only is this gin a knockout, the branding is beautiful too.  The specially commissioned design on the back of the Aranami, which can be seen through the clear bottle, incorporates the botanicals with cranes in flight and a powerful dragon emerging from tempestuous waves.  This design was also later also turned into cravats and pocket squares, linking her two businesses and passions. 

It's Cherry Blossom season in Japan this month, so I've played heavily on cherries for this one, with a negroni riff, garnished of course with fresh cherries and blossoms.

SAKURA NEGRONI

25ml Aranami Gin

15ml Cherry Brandy

20ml Sweet Vermouth

20ml Campari

THE FRAGRANT HARBOUR

Round the World in 80 Gins/Days to finish in London on World Gin Day 12th June - whoop whoop - only a month to go and still a few continents and countries to visit!  Emma are you ready?  

A city with the most skyscrapers in the world and yet so many green spaces, Hong Kong is made up of 260 islands and is home to more than 7m people.  

You may be aware how a year ago, Handover Gin, who claimed they were Hong Kong's first gin distillery was raided by customs.  It was discovered that the gin was actually produced in New Zealand and that they did not have a distillery licence.  The company had been importing gin in unlabelled bottles and labelling them locally as distilled in Hong Kong.  The crime of importing unlabelled products and giving false claims resulted in founder Steve Newton and his girlfriend both being arrested.  When the customs officers raided the distillery in Tsuen Wan, they discovered dusty stills and equipment that were a marketing gimmick and made to look as though they were distilling on site - although some say it may have been used in the initial period before Newton resorted to passing off gin distilled cheaply in NZ.  Customs confiscated all stock and equipment on site, as well as recalled bottles from distributors and I've read they were even trying to recall all bottles sold online.

I don't know how it compares to elsewhere in the world, but a distillery licence in Hong Kong is around HK$22,700 and involves a mountain of red tape.  NIP report they had to deal with around 7 different authorities from customs to hygiene departments.  Also, finding a suitable premises in one of the most expensive real-estate markets in the world, posed a big problem too.  It's therefore no surprise that there are many brands who rather drawn inspiration locally and distill abroad.  There are only 2 licensed gin distilleries in Hong Kong (NIP and Two Moons) but there are a few other local brands who distill their gin overseas, drawing their inspiration from the city and also using locally sourced botanicals.   These include Perfume Trees (Netherlands), Gwei Lo (Thames Distillers), Fok Hing (Wharf Distillery Northampton), Bauhinia (Thames Distillers) and Fragrant Harbour (Herno, Sweden).

Perfume Trees has been created by brothers Kit and Joseph Cheung, to represent and capture the heart and soul of Hong Kong. They have worked with local farmers and suppliers to understand the terroir and aromas that make up the city they love and live in and used them to create this beautifully aromatic gin.  Their heritage botanicals pay tribute to small local producers and family businesses based in Hong Kong. These time-honoured vendors have generations of knowledge and produce botanicals which are aromatic and consistent, which makes Perfume Trees such a unique gin.  The white champaca or Perfume Tree as it's locally known, used to line the streets of the city. The flowers were sold by elderly street vendors and this gin pays homage to these elderly ladies and the generations which came before it.

Hong Kong also owes its name to another botanical included, sandalwood, as it translates quite literally to ‘Fragrance Harbour’. The city has a history of being a port which traded in spices and fragrances from all round the world. Sandalwood from India is included as a botanical and the local business which provides this has been trading for over a century. Likewise other signature ingredients like aged tangerine peel and Long Jing tea are also sourced from established and traditional local businesses.

There are brief videos on the Perfume Tree website which tell you a little more about the botanicals and stories behind them, so immerse yourselves and have a virtual tour of the traditional businesses which supply them. They featured as gin of the month last year with Craft Gin Club and this beautiful bottle can be purchased exclusively through them in the UK.

WORLD COCKTAIL DAY

Hopefully you'll all be celebrating by imbibing a few cocktails today, prompted also by #ginadaymay - what's your favourite?  This one is a White Lady - super easy to make and suits this gin perfectly! 

Yesterday I did a brief overview about gin distilling in Hong Kong and I mentioned a few brands that contract distill abroad and Gwei-Lo was one of them.  Gwei-Lo have been brewing craft beer in Hong Kong since 2015 and in 2019 decided to expand into spirits and launch a gin, originally distilled in Bermondsey by The London Distillery Company but now distilled by Thames Distillers.

If you follow spirits news, you will be aware that TLDC went into administration in January 2020. I was fortunate to have a tour of their very tiny facility in a railway arch, where they not only distilled gin, but also whisky.   If you don't recognise their distillery name, you will recognise their brand Dodd's Gin, which is now owned by The British Honey Company. They also distilled for Kew Gardens, who now collaborate with the East London Liquor Company to produce Kew Gin, using botanicals which come directly from the gardens.

Gwei-Lo Gin showcases two botanicals - Mosaic hops (the lead hop from their signature pale ale) and Japanese yuzu peel.  It's citrus forward and perfect with a neutral tonic.  I've also read that they have developed a tonic with Bermondsey, that pairs perfectly with their gin and that they also hope to release an RTD.  

Gweilo is a Cantonese slang term meaning foreign devil or ghost man and is commonly used in Hong Kong as an acceptable generic term for Westerners or non-Chinese.  It may not be "polite" but it's certainly not considered derogatory anymore - so I've read!  When I dug a little deeper into the research, the name all made sense too (clue, the founders are originally from the UK)!  Joe Gould, Ian Jebbitt and wife Emily, were trading for a few years as a contract brewery but around 2018 decided to go large and move into a US$5m facility in Hong Kong's New Territories. This has made them HKs largest craft brewery and they are now exporting to many countries, including the UK and following a successful Limited Batch launch late in 2020, they launched their Core Range in the UK early this year.  Do I drink beer?  Actually yes!  There isn't anything better than an ice cold brew at the end of a hot day - I just don't post about it!

I have to say, from all the reading up about them, they are an ambitious bunch and they are working with Cathay Pacific and the Hong Kong tourist board, so I think you will be seeing a lot more about them in the future, especially with the world opening up again after COVID.

ASIA DAISY

As mentioned in my post a couple of days ago, there has been an increase in gin production and consumption in Asia and I thought I would do a little Vietnamese gin roundup.   Rice has been distilled for centuries and much like the Philippines, drinking is very much part of their culture, with gin festivals being held since around 2018 and getting bigger each year.  Reading up a little about the gin bars in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh it appears the creativity and vibrancy of the country extends into these, with most bars having a variety of house (gin) infusions available to try - so it's not the labels that would attract any gin aficionados, but the unique and creative blends of Asian fruits and spices that you will come across.

There are a few local brands which produce some interesting sounding gin.  Saigon Baigur, founded in 2020, claim they are the first handcrafted gin coming out of Ho Chi Minh City and use buddhas hand, lotus flower and black cardamom to create their unique gin.  You may have spotted their beautiful bottle which has been inspired by the scales of a dragon, which also features in their branding. 

Sông Cái are based in Hanoi and they highlight botanicals from northern Vietnam and work with 70 families from ethnic minority tribes in the highland forests to source their ingredients. 

Royal Sedang is another gin which is inspired by botanicals from Vietnam, but is distilled in Bordeaux, France and pays homage to Charles Marie de Mayrena, the last French King and Chief of the Kingdom of Sedang in 1888.  Their claim is that they are the first gin using 100% Asian botanicals and feature litchi, jasmine and lemongrass alongside the more common gin botanicals - no mention if this includes juniper though! 

If you have followed the plight of some breweries during lockdown you will be aware how they have had to be a bit creative around upcycling beer into gin, but Brewstillery claim to be the first to have upcycled craft beer mash from their Furbrew Distillery, into their Mashed Up Gin and launched in 2019. 

Lady Trieu brought to market 2 gins (around 2019) by Adam Westbook, formerly of Portobello Road Gin fame and also featuring south and central Vietnamese botanicals.  

Paper Lantern launched in 2016 by Siman Ames (originally from Turkey), and was initially distilled in Chang Mai in Thailand, using a base of rice alcohol and local botanicals and spices commonly used in Northern Thailand, like sichuan peppercorns, galangal and ginger.  Siman and her husband have lived and worked all over the world, but it was when they moved to Singapore in 2012 that they were inspired to create an Asian gin.  They raised money through a crowdfunding campaign in Australia and chose to have their gin distilled in Thailand as this was where their distiller lived and they purchased from local farmers, thereby giving back to the communities as well.  The first 2 batches were distilled in Thailand but they have since moved to distill in Vietnam where ingredients are more readily available.

The rice based spirit is also made at the distillery and botanicals are macerated before being slowly distilled and finished with a kiss of logan berry honey sourced from villages in Northern Vietnam.  The bottle label takes inspiration from traditional Chinese paper cuttings and is focused on their key botanical, the Sichuan Pepper with its red/pink berries.  It has a very distinct and unique aroma and flavour with the rice base coming through fairly strong.  It's earthy and warm with slight sweetness as well.  It may not be for everyone as it is quite different to your normal London Dry, but it's really smooth and I think well balanced and has won Best Vietnamese Contemporary Gin in the 2019 World Gin Awards and Double Silver at the 2018 World Gin Masters.

The cocktail is an Asia Daisy.  Crush lime into your glass, add ice, 60ml gin, 25ml sugar syrup and 25ml ginger ale.  Stir gently and float 25ml lychee liqueur on top.

HOW TO ORDER A G&T IN THAILAND

Thailand has a long history of small scale homemade white spirits, especially in the rural areas where the sweet alcoholic brew sato has been made for decades, but it was only on 2003 that the Thailand Liquor Act allowed small producers and households the right to legally produce fermented or distilled alcohol. This is commonly known as a village distillery license.   However, this only applies to clear spirits and they are not permitted to specify the type of spirit.  So they cannot label it vodka, gin or rum and may only state it's a white spirit, so even dark rum is still illegal.  This has obviously led to a little creativity with regards labelling for some brands.

Ashley Sutton, a bar and nightclub owner established the Iron Balls Distillery in 2015 - the first distillery to have a licence granted in Thailand in 31 years.  They had a bit of a nightmare getting to market though, trying to convince authorities what they were doing was safe and even their bottle and percentage of alcohol were initially rejected locally.  They are not yet shipping directly to the UK (you can buy via Europe), but they tell me it won't be long!  

Chalong Bay Distillery and Bar in Phuket produce Chalong Bay Cane Spirit (a rum) and in March 2021 released a gin onto the market called Saneha (meaning passion) distilled using a sugarcane base.  The bottle is Art Deco inspired and they market it as Thai Jungle Essence!

You'll also find brands like Grandma Jinn's, Kristall, Niikki Cristal G, Spirit of Kata Rocks (from the Kata Rocks resort in Phuket and using Peruvian juniper) - none of which state gin anywhere on the labels, but are marketed as gin, due to the addition of juniper in the botanical lineup. So fear not if you are in Thailand and want to try a local gin and can't see one on a bar shelf - they definitely do produce gin, just can't label it as such!

So not having any juniper infused white spirit from Thailand, I've gone with SE Asian inspired Tarsier Gin from Manchester, which is inspired by the founders' (Tim Driver and Sherwin Acebuche) backpacking trip around SE Asia in 2015.  The gin is named after the Philippine Tarsier, one of the world’s smallest primates that is native to the Philippines and they have also partnered with the Philippine Tarsier Foundation to help save these endangered animals.  I don't like to mess with this one, so my favourite serve is a G&T with ginger and lime.

SRI LANKAN NEGRONI

During WW2 gin was not permitted to be made outside the British Empire, as excise officers believed no good London Dry gins could be produced outside of the UK.  Rockland Distilleries persisted and insisted, which resulted in a new regulation called Ceylon Made Foreign Liquor (CMFL), which allowed them to produce gin in Ceylon - Colombo Gin.  Co-incidentally, this ruling was also implemented in India at the time - the IMFL!

The inspiration for Colombo No.7 is Tanqueray, the founder of Rockland Distillery's favourite gin.  Carl de Silva Wijeyeratne found it difficult to get hold of the normal base ingredients due to trade channels being blocked during the war, so he swapped out a few and added cinnamon, ginger and curry leaf - harvested locally.  After the war he created Rockland Gin, using the more typical ingredients and this is still made and sold widely in Sri Lanka alongside Rockland Lemon Gin.

The distillery is now run by Carl's grandson Amal, who joined the company to rebuild it after the 2004 tsunami.  Amal decided to recreate his grandfather's recipe but due to tightening alcohol production regulations in Sri Lanka, decided to use Langley Distillery in the UK.  The recipe is the exact recipe his grandfather perfected, using 7 ingredients and bottles at 43.1%.  They also have a Navy Strength bottled at 57% released in early 2020, using notes left by Carl - same botanicals, just tweaked a little to get the balance right.