Hello YASO Distiller Sugikawa.
This month's green gin is packed with the scent of fresh greenery in a bottle.
This will be the first gin where I was in charge of everything from ingredient selection to recipe creation and blending.

It was in April that I was approached by Director Umeda to be in charge of June.
At that point, I decided to make a gin using actual sansho (Japanese pepper), which I had wanted to try for some time, and distilled it in a testing apparatus.
The aroma of YASO's original sake, the fresh aroma of jitsu-sansho (Japanese pepper), and the pungent taste of jitsu-sansho on the tongue were more perfect than we had imagined.
But I'm bored with just sansho... I want more green aromas that are unique to this season...
With this in mind, we visited Good Grind Farm in Yanane, Kashiwazaki City, Niigata Prefecture, where we are always grateful for their hospitality when the leaves of sansho (Japanese pepper) were budding.

Mr. Maehata here uses the residue from the distillation of YASO as fertilizer to grow herbs and other plants.

The weather was good and the river was sprouting native Usukashi (Japanese butterbur).
Perhaps because they are new sprouts, the fragrance is more intense than when they were harvested last summer, and it is difficult to remove the fragrance from my hands.

Mr. Maehata led us into the forest, where we saw sansho trees growing wild here and there under the cedar trees, and we were allowed to pick their newly sprouted shoots.
I am from the countryside of Toyama, so I used to pick wild vegetables and nuts in the fields and in the mountains of my parents' house, and run around in the fields catching frogs and lizards.
I was soaking it in and was bitten by a caterpillar on my leg. (It was swollen for about 3 days lol)

Later, while I was picking butterbur in a corner of Mr. Maehata's field, I noticed a scent like that of a geranium, and when I looked down at my feet, I saw that the whole area was covered with rounded-leafed plants characteristic of the Perilla family.

I was surprised to find a nice aroma, and upon investigation, I found that it is a type of herb called kakidooshi, which is native to Japan.
I was familiar with the leaves, but I had never smelled such a fragrance before. Is it the strength of the fragrance of the fresh green season after all?
With Mr. Maehata, I said, "I found something good. We can use it." and harvested it.

As I was picking oyster mushrooms through the trees, the sun shone brightly on the fresh green of the trees I looked up at,
The image of Limited 06 came to mind when I thought of this "greenhorn" scenery, and it became the inspiration for this zine.

We named this limited edition "Forest Shower" after the sunlight that shines through the gaps between the sparkling trees and young leaves, pouring down like a rain of light, and created this scenery in an attempt to express it in a gin.

First, after returning to the distillery, I added mitsuba (mitsuba) and fig leaves from my family home to the sansho leaves, kakidooshi (oyster mushroom), and mint that I had picked, and distilled the green aromas.
We tasted a blend of juniper berries and a gin base distilled with a small amount of spices, and decided that we wanted a more aromatic coniferous element, so we distilled close grain grains as a separate part.

Kaya is an evergreen coniferous tree of the yew family, and its nuts have a refreshing citrusy flavor combined with a greenish scent like green plum, plus a forest-like aroma unique to coniferous trees, which is exactly my favorite aroma.
This time we used close grain nuts that were collected from Mr. Maehata's mountain last summer, soaked whole in YASO spirits, and distilled under reduced pressure.
I have been in love with this fragrance since I first picked it up, and I was hoping to distill it soon, so I was happy to be able to use this botanical this time.

Upon distillation, the aroma was more fragrant, green and fruity than I had expected and perfect for this gin.

To further enhance the green aroma, the top and middle notes are thickened with a strong citrusy component distilled from a combination of hebes and yuzu pulp and black licorice.

And finally, the original plan of distilling the actual sansho by itself was blended with 0.2% of the distillate, adjusted by 0.2%.
The combination of the green aroma of wildflowers, citrus fruit, and the freshness of sansho (Japanese pepper), has created a gin that is reminiscent of the "greenery" scenery seen in the forests of Tanine.

This Forest Shower is an excellent choice to split with Fever Tree Elderflower.
It was so delicious that I couldn't help but smile while tasting it.

Surrounded by the aroma of fresh greenery, perfect for the sweaty season,
How about chill time while listening to the sound of early summer wind and rain?