Nice to meet you, I am Sugikawa, a YASO distiller.
New this year is the YASO Diary, which describes the daily work of the YASO distillers.
I hope to update this page about once a month with scenes of gin and absinthe production from the YASO distiller's point of view.
Now, in this, my first post, I will discuss the January Limited.
The first Limited for 2022 is a "bergamot" gin.
Bergamot has appeared several times in YASO's series, but it is not a plant that we are familiar with in our daily lives.
Bergamot is a citrus fruit in the tangerine family.
Although rarely sold as a fruit in Japan, it is a citrus with an aromatic epidermis.
Familiarly, it is used to flavor Earl Grey tea and in perfumes.
This bergamot is grown in a corner of an olive grove, and its fragrance is spread simply by the rubbing of its leaves.
It's so nice to be in a field where the bergamot smells softly in the breeze of the Seto Inland Sea...
Bergamot, carefully grown in olive groves on Shodoshima Island in the beautiful Seto Inland Sea, was lavishly used in this gin.
First, the most fragrant peel of the bergamot peel is peeled by hand one by one and used for fragrance.
Peel and cut the bergamot wrapped in the wattles, further peel and cut the bergamot into pulpy pieces.
This was used generously to add bergamot and citrus-like flavors to the gin.
And this time, even the "leaves" of bergamot are used.
I was looking forward to seeing the bergamot leaves when I heard that when the leaves are rubbed....
When I smelled the leaves that arrived from Yamada Olive Garden, they didn't smell very good as they were.
When you smell it after a little bit, you can smell the aroma of Earl Grey....
Therefore, for this gin, we used bergamot leaves that had been lightly grated in a mortar and pestle to enhance the aroma.
The same distillation method cannot be used for the peels, berries, and leaves, so each is distilled in a different way so that the aroma and flavor can be easily expressed.
The fresh scent of bergamot perfectly matches the transparency of the year-round YASOGIN "150" model,
The result is a gin with a gorgeous aroma, like the wind that blows between the lush bergamot-fruited trees.
The launch is scheduled for January 15.
Enjoy.
