THE ETHICAL SPIRITS & CO - JAPAN

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As I'm sure most of you will have noticed, there is a big movement towards sustainability and ethical practices within the spirits industry.  The Ethical Spirits & Co in Japan are forerunners promoting sustainability within the sake industry, by using waste sake lees in some groundbreaking new spirits and were kind enough to send me some of their gin to try.

The sake market has a no waste culture and the lees, a solid product with the same alcoholic and aromatic components as sake, are usually repurposed into edible products such as pickled foods or even given away free as animal feed. 

Yuya Yamamoto, who established Mirai Sake Company in 2014, began to notice that only half of this was accounted for in the market.  In 2020 he established The Ethical Spirits & Co to try and find a solution to the excess sake lees and by using knowledge of the growing gin market that he had gained while living in the UK.

The concept was successful and they now also produce innovative products using cacao husks and rescued beer which would otherwise be wasted (due to covid-19). 

Last Series features 2 gins - Modest and Elegant - using sake lees and other expired alcohol, resulting in highly aromatic contemporary gins.  They have called it Last Series, as the sake lees are the remains of sake production but it continues to get a second life by being used in the creation of a base spirit for gin. In comparison, most gins would use a neutral spirit, but the lees contribute to a highly flavoured and complex base spirit which interplays with the juniper and botanicals used.

Elegant is perfectly named, with floral notes and lots of complexity.  It's a bold gin, with bright, floral and warm spicy notes and one of the best gins I've tried in a while.  Modest in comparison I found to be slightly sweeter, with more spice and warmth - an equally beautiful gin.

I thought a White Lady would be a fitting cocktail, but I riffed it up a little, with the addition of some ginger liqueur.  Elegant as its name and a beautiful riff with the gin at the fore!

Elegant Lady

45ml Last Series Elegant Gin

12ml Triple Sec

12ml Ginger Liqueur

22ml Lemon Juice plus the oils squeezed into the shaker

10ml Sugar Syrup

1 egg white

Garnish with a gold dusted lemon zest rose.