First Citrus is a mandarine eau de vie made of organic mandarines from the south of Croatia.
We were looking for an organic producer of citruses since the beginning of our distillers’ journey, knowing how important they’d be in the distillery, how the zest is the carrier of the smell, and how mass produced citruses are heavily treated with pesticides. The idea of having them dissolved in our products wasn’t really appealing.
A talk with friends gave us a clue as to where to look- there was a young, passionate couple living between Zagreb and Neretva valley and producing organic citruses. We wanted to find out more, so we went to meet them and taste the fruit in their warehouse near Zagreb, and instantly found the right people to work with.
Our first choice was mandarine, as they were just in season, and they could offer us fruit that was hard to sell: either too small or with skin imperfections- flaws that don’t matter taste-wise. For us, they were perfect, as the idea went hand in hand with our aim to be as sustainable as we can. The mandarines weren’t treated with chemicals at any stadium of fruit development. Instead, fruit enzymes were used, to protect and nurture the fruit.
From the passionate mandarine-growers, we first heard the story of the arrival of mandarine trees to the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1933. A present from Japanese consul, a couple of hundreds of citrus seedlings came by ship to Dalmatia, mandarines of the unshiu species among them. Since then, the number of mandarine trees in the Neretva valley rose to a couple of million. We couldn’t overlook this Japanese connection, as we spent a month of April 2019 in Japan, learning about foraging, fermenting and distilling from Hiroshi Eguchi of Mitosaya Botanical Distillery. Citruses play an essential part in Mitosaya Distillery.
We started to ferment mandarines as a way to focus on sustainability at our distillery: since we use fresh mandarine peel for our Monachus Dry Gin, after peeling the mandarines, we are left with juicy pulp that we don’t want to throw away. Natural fermentation resulted in a distillate that was delicate, tender, and lightly citrussy- we decided to add the fresh mandarine peel so the high citrus notes come forward, and the fermented fruit stays behind, but still noticeable. One can taste both the sweetness of the fruit and the bitterness of the peel.
First Citrus, as the mandarine is the first citrus of winter, and the first citrus distillate we made.
The aromas come forward best at room temperature (from 15 to 20°C), and we recommend serving this drink in a tulip-shaped glass.
