Ages of Man – The Ascaim Distillery

I already shared my tasting notes on the Ascaim Distillery Quince Gin. However, today I want to take a closer look at the distillery and their products. Therefore, I created two completely different drinks which both have in common that they are a great combination of juniper notes and eau de vies. On top of that, I can also give you a preview of their yet to be released buckwheat whisky.

The distillery

First, let me tell you a bit about the Ascaim Distillery in Aschheim, near Munich itself: In 2012 Franz and Christian Böltl, the founders of the distillery, discovered an old recipe book for eau de vies and liqueurs. So, the idea was born to create high quality spirits and eau de vies. After a while of experimenting with distilling as a hobby, the brothers decided to take the whole thing to a professional level. They invested into a 150 l still with parts from three manufacturers. Christian and Franz use a lot of regional raw ingredients, some from their own meadow orchards, in their spirits, besides the cacao, coffee and tonka beans of course.

Ash leaf gin

Obviously, as a new distillery you have to make a gin. Besides their two gin liqueurs, the Eschenblatt Gin uses 28 organic botanicals and neutral grain alcohol distilled from wheat. The botanicals include amongst others ash leaves, lemon peel, orange blossoms, cardamom, liquorice and monk’s pepper. The gin is more on the New Western Style side. You get some juniper notes, but the effervescent powder, candied ginger and gum cistus notes are more upfront. It is quite smooth with some black pepper notes. I can image in working well with the Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water.

Multiplex cacao notes

One of the not so regional spirits is the cacao eau de vie. It is distilled from cacao beans macerated in neutral alcohol. As you might expect, the cacao eau de vie really tastes of cacao. However, there are also quite a lot of other related flavours. You can taste dark chocolate, chocolate pudding and cacao powder. For a drink I combined the Eschenblatt Gin and the cacao eau de vie to create a kind of Twentieth Century cocktail variation. Instead of lemon juice, I tried to use something different. So, I came up with pear juice made more sour by adding malic acid. While apple juice already has more acidity on its own, you need a bit more acid with the sweeter pear juice.

When sipping the Ages of Man you first notice the classic Twentieth Century cocktail flavour combination of juniper and cacao notes. However, when you expect the sour citrus notes to kick in, you instead get a whiff of pear notes in combination with sour apples. In my opinion this works rather well, especially because the pear juice gives the whole drink a great mouth-feel.

Delicate sloe berries

When talking about the next product from the Ascaim Distillery, their sloe gin, it is important to keep in mind that most sloe gins are either very sweet or have a very astringent note. However, the Ascaim Sloe Gin beautifully walks the line between sweetness, juniper notes and acetous notes. Of course, there are other great sloe gins out there, but the Ascaim Sloe Gin might just be my favourite. This is also why I used it in a rather unconventional cocktail. Sure, a Negroni Variation with sloe gin instead of gin, is not that special. Yet, I chose to replace the sweet vermouth with the gin liqueur. Instead of gin as the base spirit, I opted for an apricot eau de vie and instead of Campari I used the French gentian liqueur Suze. So, you could almost call it a White Negroni variation. Luckily, this rather unconventional combination of spirits turned out pretty well.

Buckwheat whisky

Last, but not least I want to give you a quick preview into what will once be the Ascaim Whisky. I had whisky distilled from all sorts of “grains” barley, corn, oats, rye, triticale and wheat. However, I never had one distilled from buckwheat. Well, technically I still have to try a buckwheat whisky, because the Ascaim Buckwheat is still too young to call itself whisky. On top of that buckwheat is not a grain, but rather the fruit of a Polygonacea (knotweed family), but with its grain-like properties it is also suited for the whisky-production. The sample I got, tasted somehow reminiscent of a malted whisky, but on top of that there are more flower notes than with regular whiskies. Apart from that it is quite smooth with almost metallic juvenile taste.

*The fact that I received a product reviewed in this article for free, did not – in any way – influence the rating of said product. The spirits was provided by the Ascaim Distillery.