Cala Kumquat Gin

The name stops at the fruit and the recipe does not. Kumquat is the headline, used whole and organic, and it brings the one citrus that carries its sweetness in the skin and its bitterness in the flesh rather than the other way round. Bite into one and both arrive together, which is a useful thing to build a Belgian gin around.

Citrus · Spicy · Fruity · Herbal

Untreated lemons and oranges widen that citrus without repeating it, lemon for acidity, orange for roundness, both worked with the skins intact. Cloves place a warm, faintly medicinal spice underneath. Then the list turns towards the brewhouse: dried hop cones and malted barley kernels, two ingredients that belong to beer rather than to gin. Hops contribute a green resinousResinousAn aroma reminiscent of pine or fir resin. It is juniper's signature, due to compounds such as pinene.Glossary bitterness that runs alongside juniper and stretches the finish out; malted barley brings a soft cereal sweetness and some weight in the middle. Cocoa from the Ivory Coast closes the botanical list, dry instead of sweet, nearer a roasted nib than a chocolate bar. Eight botanicals is a long list for a flavoured ginFlavoured ginGin with flavourings, often fruity, added after distillation. It may be coloured and lightly sweetened.GlossarySee Flavoured gin gins, and this one is unusually coherent: each item either sharpens the citrus or gives it something to rest on.

What comes out of that is fruity at the front and bitter at the back, with a chewier centre than most flavoured gins ever manage. The cocoa and the malt keep it from reading as a simple citrus gin, and the hops make certain it never slides towards a liqueur. What is left is a citrus gin that finishes like something brewed.

Tonic and a slice of kumquat if you can find one, orange peel if not. A long, cold serve suits it better than a short one, because the malt and the cocoa need dilutionDilutionThe water added by melting ice. In the right amount it opens the aromas and softens the alcohol; too much flattens the drink.Glossary before they separate from the fruit. It survives a NegroniNegroniAn Italian cocktail of equal parts gin, sweet vermouth and red bitter (Campari), served over ice with orange peel. Born in Florence in 1919.Glossary better than the fruit on the label would suggest, because the cocoa answers the vermouthVermouthAn aromatised, fortified wine flavoured with herbs and barks; its name comes from the German Wermut, wormwood. Dry vermouth goes into a Martini, sweet red into a Negroni.Glossary and the hop bitterness answers the bitter.