This gin is interesting in many ways. First, it is from a very uncommon country – Colombia. It is in fact made in the beautiful Cartegena district in the Dictador distillery by the master Hernan Parra Arango. There is a historical story of Severo Arango y Ferro who was sent in the 18th century from Spain to improve tax collection in Colombia. He was somewhat of a dictator. Parra Arango is actually a descendant of him and that is how the distillery got its name!

The second interesting angle to this gin is that it is not made from any neutral grain spirits but sugarcane!! As you can imagine, Colombian weather grows a lot of sugarcane. Of course, rum is the first go-to alcohol from sugarcane. But it is the same base that is used for this gin. In fact it is distilled five times and in the last distillation, macerated herbs and botanicals are introduced.

The botanicals are the typical ones – juniper, Angelica root, lemon peel and pepper and some unusual local herbs including mint, berries and ginger.

The third interesting angle is that this gin is then aged for 35 weeks in rum barrels. Finally, it is carefully filtered to take out the coloration.

The nose of the gin was predominantly citrusy in the beginning. After some time, the juniper started breaking out very well. To the palette, it is very crisp but after a few seconds it mellows down (almost like buttery) in the mouth. The finish was more on the weaker side for some reason.

I will try with some tonic water next and see how it brings out the complexities of this gin.