Puerto de Indias gin is a new one across my palate. As we’re sending more and more gins abroad, Spain – where the latest gin craze initially gained momentum – has started sending more of their own over here.
Last week we saw how Larios is now available in Manchester, and now the latest Spanish pretties to land in my lap are two from Seville, the Pure Black Edition and one that I know will get tongues wagging, their Strawberry Gin.
Puerto de Indias is a premium gin made in Carmona (Sevilla), one of the oldest distilleries in Andalucía (the distillery dates back to 1880). The name refers to the time when Seville was one of the main ports doing trade with the newly discovered Americas. Their ‘standard’ gin recipe dates back to 1950, very much a well kept secret in Spain.
Their Pure Black Edition, however is definite step away from their normal recipe. Launched in late 2015, it’s a higher ABV at 40% and the flavour profile is much more adventurous. While their standard has more traditional notes, Pure Black is all about the floral notes, with the light bitterness that comes from jasmine, orangeflower and a rounded finish from the vanilla.
For me, this is definitely going in my top 20. I love citrus and though it’s a heavier ABV, on the palate it’s all florals and citrus with a vanilla finish. In fact, though the serving suggestion all over Seville seems to feature Grenadine and lots of garnish, for me it calls for light tonic, and a good piece of orange peel to pick out the orangeflower and enhance the vanilla.
And now to the one that I know is going to get a few tongues wagging. The Strawberry Gin. This delightfully pink concoction is all the result of a mistake, when the master distiller was attempting create a new strawberry liqueur. The gin uses two copper alembic stills and wild juniper berries and strawberries are macerated for 48 hours before an 18 hour distillation process.
The result is delicious. It’s sweet, but not intensely so and when served with tonic, the strawberry notes aren’t drowned out at all, instead, their deeper notes are intensified, and served with ice and sliced strawberries you get a rather fresh and refreshing summery G&T.
Now for the million dollar question. Where can you get hold of them?
At the moment, there’s one distributor for them is Hills Fine Foods in Lancashire. They specialise in supplying charcuterie and cheese to restaurants and bars. Luckily, they serve all over the North West, and so they’re promoting this gin as part of their portfolio – so hopefully we’ll soon see it in bars across the city. In the meantime if you fancy a bottle for personal use, the Black Edition is available at the very reasonable price of £23.19, and the Strawberry Gin is available for £34.58 – both from Master of Malt.
I feel a little online shopping coming on.
With thanks to Hills for letting me sample these two!