Zymurgorium Manchester Gin - Mandarin Dynasty

Gin description

This is our first baby of the World Tour and it has not disappointed! To start our tour we decided to hop on the Orient Express and go to the land with the most diverse and rich cuisine on the planet… CHINA! They have everything but one thing really stuck out to us when looking into the art of Chinese cooking is that the idea of using a ‘five-spice’ is key to most dishes. ‘five-spice’ does not have a definitive recipe to which families who have a successful recipe will be very secretive and extremely prideful, also we found out it tends to have a latitudinal gradient of ingredient alterations due to changing climates/resources. However the one thing they all share in common is the aim to achieve a sweet & sour flavour. With our knowledge to hand we set off in the lab and finally came out with the Mandarin Dynasty Gin. Mandarins as well as the fruit were Chinese Scholars/Diplomats in the Ming dynasty who held a lot of power and say; with all the learning we gathered we thought it was an apt name. We finally decided to use our aromatic Copperhead Potstill and a simple elegant recipe: Wild Juniper, Sweet & Sour Mandarins (peel and juice), Chinese Cinnamon, Sichuan Pepper, Fennel Seeds, Star Anise and Cloves.