HOME-GROWN SPIRITS

In praise of the producers capturing the spirit of the land in their bottles.

By Clinton Cawood

Terroir, that wonderfully ephemeral idea that speaks of the influence of place – whether that’s the soil, or the climate, or something more elusive... For too long it was mainly the preserve of wine, but spirits have always been just as capable, if not more, of literally distilling a sense of place. Various factors can influence the flavour of a spirit, of course, but for some distilleries, it’s their local surrounds, that inexpressible terroir unique to them, that comes first.

France

Cognac Frapin

Cognac isn’t necessarily the first spirit you’d associate with terroir, with more importance usually placed on the influence of oak ageing and blending. But for some producers, such as Cognac Frapin, expressing the local region is a priority. Unlike most cognac houses that traditionally buy their grapes from growers in various regions, or crus, to create a blend, Frapin only uses grapes grown on its own estate, located in the most prestigious of crus, Grande Champagne. Taking this a step further, the house produces a singlevineyard cognac, made exclusively with grapes that are grown, distilled, aged and bottled at its Château Fontpinot.

Mexico

Peru BarSol Pisco

The purest expression of grapes in distilled form, and by extension the place in which those grapes were grown, has to be pisco – Peruvian pisco, in particular. Regulations don’t allow pisco producers in Peru to add anything to their spirits, not even water. All you get is the grape, fermented and distilled once.

BarSol Pisco produces all of its spirits from grapes grown in the country’s southern Ica Valley. Distillation and bottling all takes place at the historic Bodega San Isidro, using grape varieties such as Torontel and Quebranta.

Del MezcalMaguey

Regionality and terroir are inextricably linked with Mexico’s agave spirits. In tequila, they speak of the differences between agave plants grown in the highlands or lowlands of Jalisco. Mezcal has an even more diverse region to draw from, not to mention an array of agave varieties. Throw in the traditional use of natural fermentation with wild yeasts, and you have the potential for each mezcal to be a snapshot of its local environment. Among the first brands to highlight this regionality in mezcal was Del Maguey, with its single-village bottlings, handcrafted by individual farmer-families and each gloriously distinct from the next.

United States St. George Spirits

Gin can have a tendency towards exotic botanicals sourced from the four corners of the globe, although in recent years there’s been a greater focus on local ingredients. One gin that’s particularly concerned with capturing a sense of place –the clue is in the name – is Terroir Gin, from California’s St. George Spirits. To transport you to the distillery’s local surrounds, the team there incorporate Douglas Fir tips and California bay laurel, both foraged locally.

Kenya Procera Gin

To produce Kenyan gin Procera, the team source a variety of juniper that’s native to the region and grown just 40 miles

Ireland Waterford Whisky

Most whisky distillers can probably only tell you roughly where the barley they buy was grown. Not Waterford Whisky in Ireland, who can trace their grain to the specific farm, and tell you the name of the farmer too. Waterford works with about 40 growers a year, distilling each farm’s barley separately to capture the terroir –which it defines as the interaction of soil, microclimate and site – of each. Waterford is now the world’s largest producer of organic and biodynamic whisky.

Waterford founder Mark Reynier has since set up the Renegade Rum Distillery in Grenada, with a similar terroir-led approach, and the rums are made with sugarcane juice rather than molasses. away from the distillery in Nairobi. The distinctive flavour of Juniperus procera is said to be a result of the high altitudes and sun it receives in the country’s highlands.

Beyond this main botanical, Procera has the ambitious goal of bottling the terroir of its entire continent, exclusively sourcing its ingredients from across Africa – everything from coriander and orris root from Morocco, to cardamom and mace from Zanzibar and acacia honey from Somalia.