Sustainability series: citruses
We often say that a fantastic base ingredient is our starting point. By that, we mean the quality of the fruit, its health impact, and its environmental impact because the three are tightly interlinked. Since the beginning of Monachus, we’ve been using organic citruses from the organic producer Mandarinet. Not only are they certified organic producers, but they are indeed sustainable farming enthusiasts who do not use even the pesticides allowed in the organic production- instead, they use fruit enzymes to protect and nourish their trees.
By doing that, they consider both the health of their customers and the health of their environment in the Neretva Valley in southern Croatia- which, at the bottom line, is a closed circle. We use the fresh peel from their mandarines for our Monachus Dry Gin, fresh blood orange peel for our There Will Be Blood Orange Gin, and fresh orange peel for our Breakfast in Palermo Gin- but what do we do with the pulp once we peel the citruses? Considering that sustainabilty for us isn’t a marketing trick, but instead, we practice it daily in our production, all of the citrus pulp left from the gin production is fully used for our other distillates. For example, we use mandarine pulp to make our Mandarine Cuvée, and at the moment, we are working on a distillate made of blood orange pulp.
After our There Will Be Blood Orange Gin aroused wildly positive reactions and sold out in a short period, we decided to make a second, bigger batch this year. It meant more oranges that needed to be peeled one by one- since we only use fresh citrus peel in our production (as opposed to already peeled and dried citruses widely used in the industry). We are positive that fresh citrus peel brings vividness and unparalleled flavor that simply cannot be achieved with dry citruses. After that, we put the peel for maceration in alcohol, and we mashed and prepared the pulp for slow fermentation. A couple of months later, we distilled the fermented pulp- since oranges contain a relatively low amount of sugar, from the total amount of fruit we got less than 10 % alcohol (this is one of the reasons why some of our series are so limited).
What follows is completing the second batch of There Will Be Blood Orange Gin and working on fermented blood orange distillate. Each new distillate is a new project for us (and thus exciting) that includes research of taste and smell, balancing the flavors, and finally, the creative process of building an identity for the product- the name and the visual. Every step of that way is equally important for us- from the sustainably sourced fruit and (sustainable) production methods, aging, sustainable packaging to finally releasing the product we worked so hard on into the world. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on in the last months!
