Gin O’Clock – Part Forty
Fusion is a style which has gained a foothold in the culinary world and it is beginning to carve out a niche in the ginaissance as distillers jostle to find an edge in an ever-growing marketplace.
Take our featured gin, Jinzu Gin. At first glance you may be forgiven for thinking that it is a Japanese gin but you would be wrong. True it draws its inspiration and some of its botanical from the Land of the Rising Sun but it is distilled in Scotland and is the brainchild of English bartender, Dee Davies. The name Jinzu comes the river that wends its way through the prefecture of Toyama, on the coast of the Sea of Japan on central Honshu, about 300km north-west of Tokyo.
A feature of the river is the profusion of cherry blossom that lines its banks. It would not surprise you, then, to find that cherry blossom is a key botanical in the gin that bears its name. The other botanical giving the spirit an Oriental flavour is yuzu, which, to the uninitiated, is a citrus fruit whose flavour is a mix of lemon and grapefruit. It is used by the Japanese to make jams, marmalades, and ponzu sauce and by the Koreans with honey as ersatz tea.
The principal constituents of Jinzu are juniper, coriander and angelica which are added to a neutral grain spirit and allowed to macerate before the Japanese elements, the cherry blossom and yuzu, are added. It is when the gin taken off the still with a proof of 82%, then something controversial, at least from the point of view of the gin purist, happens. It is blended with Jemnai sake, also distilled on site, and then watered down with Scottish mineral-free water until its fighting weight of 41.3% is achieved. For some the presence of another spirit puts it beyond the pale.
I think you can get a bit too petty about these things and for me what really matters is what the drink tastes like.
To the nose it has a fairly citrusy smell, although there is a hint of sweetness which I assume comes from the sake. In the mouth it is wonderfully clear, smooth, and creamy, again courtesy of the sake, but the solid gin base of the juniper comes through as do the floral hints of the cherry blossom and the citrus of the yuzu. It is unlike any other gin I have tasted and it seems to have been designed to appeal both to the gin drinkers who like a juniper-led hooch and those who prefer a more contemporary style. It runs the danger of falling between the two stools but avoids failure with some panache.
The bottle is clear and slightly dumpier than a wine bottle, with a wooden top with a bird holding an umbrella on it. The stopper to the top is a cork. The front of the bottle again features the brolly carrying bird together with a branch of cherry blossom and an opened bird cage. It is a delicate design in a Japanese style. The label claims that it is distinctively crafted, whatever that means.
If you want to go slightly off-piste, you could do worse than try this outlier of the gin world. My bottle was picked up in CostCo at a price at least a tenner below the RRP.
