Breakfast in Palermo Gin

We always like to explain creative processes and the production that leads to our distillates- from the original idea, ingredients that we used, methods of flavor extraction, the inspiration that took its course, and making-of the labels. Today we’re here to talk about our third, Breakfast in Palermo gin.

Luka Žuljević (master distiller):

“Sometimes simplicity just happens. In this case, I wanted to make a gin with coffee for a long time, but I had no idea how the eclectic combination of juniper and coffee would play out. My usual way of doing things would be dozens of trial and error combinations. Adding and deducting ingredients until I am on the right path between the imagined aroma and flavor idea and the prototype that is sitting in the glass in front of me.

But this time I decided to take a different approach, add a little simplicity, a little risk, and improvisation to the process.

We had the pleasure of meeting the kind people from the first Istrian specialty coffee roastery –Bora Nera - Erika and Matteo, at the moment they started their small family business last year. They source their coffee from small farmers, women’s cooperatives, and permaculture farming. Matteo is Italian so his roasting style definitely reminds us of having a cup of coffee in Italy while drinking Bora Nera Coffee.”

“We opted for their Perù Mayar, for two reasons: first, it has chocolate, ripe fruit honey taste, and aroma, with some acidity. The second reason we were hooked on the idea of using Perù Mayar coffee was that it came from a permaculture farm. It is an approach that promotes working according to nature rather than against it as is normally the case with conventional agricultural systems. It helps with the regeneration of local biodiversity and at the same time enables the production of products in a sustainable way for the environment and the communities that live from this.”

“Once distilled the Peru coffee distillate was strong and opulent, smokey with the power to reawaken the images of black coffee brewed in the grandma’s coffee pot or a shot of espresso in an old-school Italian bar.

This needed something playful and fresh to counterbalance the flavors.”

Anja Bendeković Žuljević (creative director and aroma counselor):

“I imagined a summer morning in Palermo, a city with an eclectic mix of influences from all around the Mediterranean. It would be warm, but there'd be some freshness in the air left lingering from the night. The city, buzzing with the anticipation of the day ahead. The morning markets would spill out fresh fruit and vegetables in bright, saturated colors- as lush as the city's Baroque architecture, as opulent as a showcase glistening with sweet Sicilian delicacies. The sun would fall on its streets, sometimes exuberant, sometimes dilapidated, always restless, in a place where cultures collide.”

“You’d sit in an old-school bar, order a smoky, dark roasted coffee, a spremuta- the freshly pressed orange juice, and a succulent brioche to start the day. Except for being a key part of the Sicilian breakfast, oranges grow everywhere on the island, we’d even seen them growing and falling on the ground on the bus stops. Citrussy, sunny orange was thus a perfect pair for that opulent coffee taste Luka extracted from Peru Mayar. Another thing is that using fresh citruses kind of became our trademark- we learned how to macerate and distill them in Japan, and we love to experiment with them. This is actually our fifth distillate where we used fresh citruses.”

“We are fortunate that our friends from Mandarinet grow organic oranges in the sunny south of Croatia, so we just needed to wait for the orange season to finish our coffee and orange gin.”

Luka Žuljević (master distiller):

“At this point, I would start blending these two distillates and have dozens of small prototypes, but inspired by the eclectic and restless city of Palermo, we took a risk and added orange peels and juniper to the entire batch of the coffee distillate. Smelling the aroma every day and seeing how it changed made us confident that we were on to something great. According to our noses and experience, we decided when it was time for a second distillation.”

“What came out of the still was something truly playful, different, and exciting! In the aroma, there is orange, a little pine from the juniper, and some chocolaty smokiness from the coffee. But the taste of this fully transparent gin is an explosion of orange on the tongue and an aftertaste of coffee. Together they build an aroma and taste of Jaffa Cake- this was a welcomed surprise, as it added a hint of soft brioche, a typical Palermitan sweet we imagined as a part of our Breakfast in Palermo.”

“We produce this limited-edition gin in really small batches (even for us) to be able to play with over-extraction. It happens at distillation when you don’t fill up the still, and thus after distillation, some aromas end up more expressive than usual- the big producers try to avoid it, as it makes it harder to control the flavor balance. Knowing our still as we do, we managed to successfully play with it, and with this gin, it resulted in quite an expressive orange aroma.”

“For this special edition, we decided to stain the labels with real coffee using our grandma’s coffee cups. It is an effect so often seen when drinking coffee in a bar and leaving a coffee stain on the napkin. We also sprinkled the labels with some Japanese orange tint to reminisce on the organic oranges we used for this gin.”

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