(44N Gin gifted by brand for review)

I don't usually do conventional gin reviews and the past few years I've been delving more into the backstories and interesting facts and obscure titbits about brands, their makers and their raison d'etre - the reason why they exist or came about. 

I'm going all French and arty on you all for this one!  As a jewellery designer and creative, this is the sort of stuff that interests me and I've always been drawn to the colour blue and so was Yves Klein.  

Klein was born in Nice in 1928 and was one of the most controversial and prominent artists in the 1950s.  He was best known for developing his own unique pigment  - International Klein Blue IKB.  

He developed this colour with the help of a chemist, in a bid to find a blue that would not fade like others did.  The blue is his legacy to the world - his way of helping us all unlock the infinite and the sublime through a single, pure colour.  For him, this colour erased the division between earth and sky and he wanted it to unlock our imagination and be inspired by it.

Klein's most controversial exhibition was called The Void.  It was an entirely empty gallery painted white but people queued in their hundreds to see it.  

He created excitement and mystery by only allowing 10 people in at a time and he served them a blue gin-based cocktail, which turned their urine his iconic Klein Blue!

44°N Gin, born in the perfume capital of the world, unapologetically proud of their modern distilling methods and firmly connected to their environment, present their luxury gin in a Klein Blue Glass bottle.  

Not only does this colour capture the essence of the South of France, with its endless skies and shimmering blue sea but it's evocative of holidays on the Côte d'Azur, where everything is bathed in sunshine and kissed by the fragrant breeze from the botanicals which grow wildly around the coast and mountains.

Melifera (gifted by brand for review)

Off the shores of the Côte d'Argent a fortress island sits proud of the Atlantic Ocean.  An island of legends, with beautiful white sand beaches, herbaceous marshes and untamed pine forests where nature reigns.  Scattered around the sun-kissed island are small villages, with old world charm, but for a bit of tranquillity, head to the sandy dunes, where bright immortelle and grasses scent the air.  Here you can sit and reflect, whilst watching the gentle waves rhythmically wash the shore and taste the salty, sweet air on your lips.

Once populated with wild beasts and game and the playground of royalty, this island gave birth to an heiress whose wealth, power and beauty made her one of the most eligible brides in Europe during the Middle Ages. Like the immortelle flower, the history and legends around her do not fade.

Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, Queen of France and Queen of England.  

Eleanor's story is fascinating, so I urge you to read about her on the English Heritage website - Eleanor of Aquitaine

The spirit of Eleanor lives on and Christophe and his wife Cécile were kind enough to send me their beautiful, handcrafted and organic gin, which is not only a tribute to Eleanor (Alienor), but also to the  island of  Oléron and of course, the immortelle flower.  

For them, creating a gin was all about nostalgia - capturing childhood memories of days spent on sandy beaches and returning home with sun-kissed faces, damp hair and salty skin.  

It's about appreciating nature at its finest whilst watching the sun set over the sea as you curl your toes in the warm sand and fill your lungs with the sweet scent of the air surrounding you.  

Chassiron lighthouse on Oleron is an important part of their story. Although this lighthouse was built on the NW part of the island several centuries after Eleanor lived, it has a special significance to Christophe, the creator of Melifera. This is where he would spend summer days surfing with his family and evenings contemplating the horizon. It’s where he knew he wanted to locate his distillery and is represented as part of Eleanor’s Seal on the labels.

The design is based on an old apothecary bottle – simple and stylish – with a texture reminiscent of the rippling sea and windswept sand dunes and it is crowned with a ring of immortelle flowers to match those Eleanor had woven into her crown when she married Henry II in 1152. These are symbolic of spiritual wisdom and fertility. Her first marriage to King Louis VII of France had been annulled just 8 weeks prior and to represent her two marriages, the rampant lion on the crest also has two tails.

There are a total of 9 botanicals, some kept secret! On the nose it’s slightly sweet, earthy and herbal. It’s extremely soft too, with no harsh alcohol notes. To taste it’s complex – sweet and jammy from elderberries and immortelle, smooth with spicy notes and a dry, slightly bitter clean finish possibly from gentian and mugwort. Not only does immortelle have significance, but in the Middle Ages, mugwort was frequently used as remedy against fatigue and to protect travelers against evil spirits & wild animals. Perhaps Eleanor used some to line her shoes when she embarked on her Crusades. Melifera perhaps lacks dominant juniper but with everything else going on, it’s not important – I really love it as much as I do the story.

A G&T is delicious, but photographed here too is a red wine sour which links the past and the present. Wine is what Eleanor would have drunk and coincidently was imported into England from around 1152 – an expensive and noble drink – fit for Kings and Queens.

It is on the west coast of Norway, in the dense forests where the sunlight struggles to penetrate to the ground and where legends and folklore have their origins, that Stig Bareksten forages for the botanicals for his spirits in hidden locations that only he knows.  Having distilled all sorts of botanicals from a young age, he has a mental catalog of every scent, taste and mouthfeel you can imagine and by having this knowledge, he has managed to create a complex and beautiful gin.  The botanical list goes on and on and includes your regular suspects of course, but also many local organic ingredients including fennel, rosehips, rose flowers, elderflowers, lingonberries, citrus, spices, lavender and many more. 

The black bottle with twisted branches depicted is dark and dramatic, yet inside the liquid is fragrant, delicate and clean.  It is intended to represent the essence of Norway - a sweet and seductive liquid birthed from the harsh Nordic forests where the Huldra forest spirits live beneath the roots of old oaks.

The Huldra are one of several wardens of the forest and are beautiful women with flowing blonde hair, who lure men into the forest with their singing.  They are sometimes naked but often dressed in long white robes and blue petticoats, which hide their cow's tail and hollow bark back.  The Huldra is a protector of the cattle on the mountainsides and offers rewards to those who satisfy her sexually and death to those who don't.   It is told that should a Huldra convince a human male to marry her, as long as her tail remains hidden during the courtship, it will fall off on their wedding day, but that he will also never be seen again. 

More about the person behind the brand:

Tasting Britain's Q&A with Stig Bareksten is good reading - learn more about how he got into making award-winning spirits.

In an interview with Fortwine, Stig had this to say about his branding:  "My gin looks both stylish and quite dark. I wanted it to show the 'dark side' of Norway, our Polar nights, deep dark forests. People in Norway are quite introvert, the neighbours often don’t say hello to each other. I must confess, that darkness fascinates me. "

Bareksten even has celebrity fans!  Gordon Ramsay had this to say about it:  "Bareksten Spirits in Bergen is producing a London Dry Gin that any Brit would go crazy for."

Bareksten's branding and local folklore are intertwined and whilst both dark and playful, capture audiences worldwide.  

I've decided to play on this and create a cocktail with the light and white frothy liquid representing the Huldra's hair and robes, but with just a little bit of her blue petticoat showing as well. Her tail, well it's considered impolite to point out if it is visible, so I would rather not say anything if you can see it!

The Huldra (White Lady)

45ml gin

20ml triple sec

10ml lemon juice

10ml lime juice

10ml sugar syrup

egg white or foamer

blue curacao for the petticoat

These stories fascinated me and so click here for more Huldra Norse Mythology

Do read the the one about the young boy, which was the inspiration for this cocktail!

When I started researching into Spain's most popular gin, I had no idea what I would uncover and by far, this has to be the best gin story ever! You just could not make it up!

Larios has its origins in Malaga and it dates back to 1866, when a French entrepreneur and Spanish associate got together and founded a distillery – Jimenex & Lamothe. In 1916 the Third Marques de Larios bought the distillery and the brand Larios was born.

The Larios family are undoubtedly a wealthy family, with roots in Malaga from the early 1800s. The family split into two with one half heading to Gibraltar, where they were very influential and successful merchants, whilst the Malaga branch was at the forefront of urban development of the city. When the well known shopping street, Calle Larios, was being constructed in 1880, the local government needed to raise 1million pesetas and did so by selling shares, which were mostly bought up by the Larios family, who took over the responsibility for the project - the street is named after the Second Marques. Having historically invested and traded in all sectors of the economy, they now mainly focus in real estate.

In the 1950s during the reign of La Dolce Vita, a cocktail called The Cardinale became fashionable - made with Riesling wine, Campari, gin and garnished with lemon peel, cloves and cinnamon.  

Read more here about The Cardinale, a legendary cocktail from La Dolce Vita

Over the years, the wine has been replaced with a dry vermouth – 50ml gin, 40ml dry vermouth, 20ml Campari, lemon peel garnish.  

My choice of gin was appropriate of course, Dolce Vita, made by Targa Ilva, in Padua near Venice.  

The Targa Ilva website tells a story of 14 yr old Emo, who with his family in 1932, travelled to Sicily for their summer holiday.  

En route they stopped in Naples, where Emo met a young girl from Capri and they struck up a friendship, agreeing to meet up again in Capri the next day, in the Piazza Umberto under the clock tower. 

They met again for the next 3 days and then the family travelled onwards to Sicily.  The time spent there certainly impressed upon young Emo and he was captivated by the flavours and scents of southern Italy and the Mediterranean. 

This passion and love for Italy stayed with him throughout his life and was shared with his own children.  

This is where the story on the Targa Ilva website gets a bit fuzzy and contradicts that on the Bagnoli website, as they claim Emo’s son Dino created Dolce Vita Gin as a homage to his father and dates don’t stack up*.  

I guess some things may be lost in translation and what should not be spoiled by delving too deep, is the reason behind the creation of the gin and indeed other lines which the Bagnoli/Targa family have created over the years – A love and pride in all things Italian and in particular the summer spent absorbing all the aromas and flavours of southern Italy and in particular Capri.  La Dolce Vita …. the sweet life.

It’s a beautiful tribute -  the sea blue bottle; the clock face from the tower in the Piazza Umberto; and the delicately perfumed liquid within. 

*Emo’s son Dino married Ilva Zita Targa (the daughter of a wine entrepreneur) and in 1954 they established Bagnoli Distilleries.  They had two sons, Camillo and Giovanni Bagnoli who manage both the Bagnoli Group and Targa Ilva.  Dino passed away in 1970. Ilva is still listed as President for the Bagnoli Group.

Lost Loch Spirits Distillery is located on the shore of Loch Auchlossan, a loch that was drained to use as agricultural land back in 1859. 

The founders, Peter Dignan and Richard Pierce aimed to create spirits with character and a link to local folklore or historical figures from the Royal Deeside area.

EeNoo is from old Scots and means the present time, in a short time or at once, and so the focus on their label is time – but it doesn’t stop there. 

Whilst researching the word eeNoo, they uncovered the story of Eenoolooapik, an adventurous teenage Inuit who befriended a ship’s crew when they were whaling in Baffin Island in Canada.

Eenoolooapik

EENOO, adv. Sc. form of Eng. even now. Also eennu, eenow, e(i)now, e(e)nnow, e(y)noo, enou, een noo, ae noo, yenoo, -ow, a'enoo, i'now. 

In 1839 EeNoo, as he became known, travelled to Aberdeen aboard the Neptune and spent a year in Scotland, learning to read and write, whilst also sharing his knowledge of botanicals and Inuit customs. 

He returned to Baffin Island, on the Bon Accord, laden with gifts from friends he had made in Scotland. 

With his vast knowledge of the local coastline on his return,he led to the rediscovery of the Cumberland Sound.

Inuits were hunter gatherers, with a diet predominantly of fish, meat and blubber, supplemented with a selection of locally foraged berries. 

The botanical list for EeNoo gin plays homage to this, including brambles, raspberries and rosehip, sourced local to the distillery, but also including local honey and Scottish heather. 

The label and branding is in the style of Inuit art but also incorporating the old Scots meaning of EeNoo by featuring an hourglass with an Inuit Owl headdress and sandhill cranes, which migrate to breed on Baffin Island either side of the hourglass, holding branches of berries in their beaks.

Follow me to the foothills of the Southern Alps on the South Island of New Zealand.

In the 1800s, Cardrona was the centre of the region's gold mining industry.  Today it's a popular winter sport destination, but in the summer the visitors favour hiking and mountain biking.  A popular spot with a bit of apre-ski in winter is the historic Cardrona Hotel, but we need to step back to the history of the town and the 1860s gold rush, for the inspiration for today's cocktail and the name given to one of the richest mines in the Cardrona Valley. It was the owner's custom to shout "gin & raspberry" whenever a bucket of pay-dirt yielded an ounce of gold and thus the mine was so-called. This story is best told by Martin Curtis, a singer-songwriter, who I believe still lives in the valley.  There is a recording of his song (Gin & Raspberry) on YouTube - do listen to it, as it's a lovely tune and really sets the mood for this cocktail and gives a bit of background about the location.

One of New Zealand's fastest growing super premium distilleries is also situated in Cardrona Valley and is founded by a husband and wife duo, Desiree and Ash Whitaker. I understand they know Martin too, so there is a link to my story!  Desiree has had a lifelong romance with whisky and after many years of study, research and planning, they founded the distillery in 2015 to make Single Malt Whisky, Gin, Single Malt Vodka and limited edition liqueurs. Not only have they sourced the very best equipment from all over the world, but they also use as many locally sourced ingredients as they can, as this gives their drinks a very unique flavour profile.

The Source Gin includes locally foraged rosehip, juniper, coriander seed, angelica root, lemon and orange zest and is vapour distilled into their single malt spirit. They don't chill-filter, so you get that lovely louche when you add ice and tonic.  It's not the cheapest of gins, but it's a real treat and I'm so happy it's part of my collection.

I've one last little titbit and no, it's not a pun!  You may or may not have heard about the Cardrona Bra Fence that became a controversial tourist attraction.  It started somewhere around 1998, with passers-by attaching bras to a section of fence alongside a public road near the Cardrona Distillery.  There were several unsuccessful attempts at removing it but when it was discovered that it was on a public road reserve, the local council ordered it to be removed.  However, BraDrona remains and now repositioned on private land, is a proud supporter of the NZ Breast Cancer Foundation.

Cardrona Distillery owners, Desiree and Ash Whittaker, are often mistaken for the people behind the fence as their property uses the same driveway. But they explained that their boundary is 4m short of the fence.

Although the bra fence is not their property or project, the couple support the cause and make a donation every year for the whole month of October, which is breast cancer awareness month. The Distillery donates $5 from each bottle of a specially created pink gin, which totalled just under $5000 last year.   Source:  The Wanaka Sun NZ

The cocktail - well of course it's a pair of Clover Club - what else would suit the story better!

The Clover Club

50ml The Source Gin

10ml Raspberry Syrup, Grenadine, Raspberry Jam or muddle fresh raspberries in the liquid

20ml Lemon Juice

15ml Vermouth (optional)

1 egg white

Raspberries for garnish

Mix all ingredients together and dry shake

Add ice and wet shake

Strain into a pretty glass, garnish and enjoy

This story comes from the Austrian capital of Vienna and if you ever visit there and can manage to prise yourself out of one of the opulent coffee houses to wonder the streets, museums or perhaps visit a Schloss, you are guaranteed to come across works by the Austrian artist, Gustav Klimt.  

In his early career Klimt was a successful architectural painter but he developed a style that was a bit too radical for the time and thus gave up on public commissions to spent most of his days working from home, swanning about in nothing but a kaftan and sandals.  He was apparently a bit of a lothorio and is said to have slept with all of his subjects, never married, but fathered at least 14 children.  One could say that his art imitated his life, as he was infatuated with the female form and his works were quite sensual and erotic.    One of his paintings was titled The Girlfriends, but is also known as The Lesbians.  Unfortunately this painting no longer exists, as it and several other works which came under public protest were set on fire by the receding Nazi forces in 1945.  

Thankfully images have been saved and times have changed and we can appreciate all forms of art, even if some of it really makes no sense at all!  

The  Viennese Kesselbrüder have both a love for everything that their capital city has to offer, as well as gin.   Editions of their gin are boxed and labeled with beautiful Art Nouveau designs and their Wien Gin is dedicated to Gustav Klimt.

Klimt Vienna Gin is carefully crafted with herbs and flowers and has a golden hue representing of the splendour of Vienna and also Klimt’s Golden Phase.  The purpose of me writing a bit about Klimt’s style will explain how and why the brothers have included certain botanicals and the physicals effects they are said to have.  They have included lavender to awaken romantic feelings;  Bishop’s Hat to strengthen libido and enhance fertility; and Lady’s Mantle and Amber as aphrodisiacs.  Juniper and lavender present first, followed by sweet citrus, a little spice and a clean lingering finish.  It’s smooth and delicate and a fitting tribute to one of the most important artists of the 20th century.  The artwork on the label does of course include one of the beautiful paintings that were destroyed – The Girlfriends.  

I thought a Cosmopolitan, swapping out the vodka for gin would suit all aspects of this story and the gin!

Where to buy?  Unfortunately this gin appears to be currently (as at February 2022) out of stock everywhere in the UK but readily available in Europe.

Back to the gin though and like many other brands do, Canaima use local botanicals and work with local communities to root themselves into a specific region.  

They support the rainforest and offer sustainable employment for the local population, thereby creating a cause which we as consumers therefore contribute to.  

They use 10 botanicals sourced from the rainforest and 1 from the nearby the distillery, 8 traditional botanicals and even the label is made from previously recycled and fully biodegradable paper.  

As and when local botanicals are available, they are individually distilled by the team at Diplomatico Rum and then blended to create this wonderful gin. 10% of global sales goes to supporting the conservation of the Amazon.  

The woven bracelets (gifted by the Canaima PR team in London) in the photo are handmade by the Warao communities.  Their baskets, coasters and bracelets are not just a piece of craft, as every bend and twist of natural fibre tells the story of an ancient culture that embodies the spirit of the Amazon rainforest.

This is a Canaima Elderflower Spritz - another twist on a classic gin cocktail and beautifully refreshing on a hot day!

50ml Canaima Gin (purchased and featured in my 80 Gins Around the World Virtual Tour 2020)

10ml Elderflower Cordial

Top with Soda Water

Garnish with mint, cucumber and lemon.

Gin Gifted by Brand for Review

I'm never sure if I love the story or the gin more - there's no right or wrong answer but knowing how and why a gin was created makes it so much more interesting to me! Add a little romance to the backstory and I'm hooked!

QVT is one of those gins that I've seen in many posts and they also featured with Craft Gin Club in April 2020 -  a month I had skipped.  You can read more about QVT in their blog by clicking the link above.

With so many new gins about, brands are competing for space on our gin shelves and unfortunately their gin or special edition just didn't make it onto mine until recently, when one of their brand ambassadors offered to send me a taste of Provence!

Like many artists and visitors to Provence, distillers Anna and Justin also fell in love with the region and decided to settle there after many years of travelling around the world.  

They had met in Africa and fell in love over sundowner G&Ts (well, I would like to think they did!).  British-born Justin was designing safari lodges there since the early 1990s and later contracted for the UN and US State Department and it was here that he met Swedish health economist, Anna, who was helping to develop health systems across the continent.  

They travelled together around Africa for several years but decided to rethink their lifestyle and settle in a safer and more stable environment after having children and spent some time in Switzerland.  

This wasn't to be their forever home and after spending time in Provence, they realised that this was where they wanted to bring up their family and moved there in 2013.  

One thing was missing though - gin!  And so QVT was born in 2019 after several years of research and taking inspiration from all that Provence has to offer.

QVT is floral, herbaceous and most of all will please the juniper-police!  It's fantastic in a G&T but I thought I would see how it held up in a Sour - amazing!  

The lemon seems to enhance all the flavours and make for a very elegant drink!  If you can't get to Provence yet then a bit of QVT will bring it to you!