Distillery Visit – Gin Eva
Our choice for the first summer vacation as a family fell on Mallorca. Obviously, this meant that I had to visit Stefan Winterling in his new ‘Casa Eva’ distillery. Luckily, he also was happy to have us and invited us to a gin tasting.
Apparently, I am biased when it comes to the distilleries I am visiting. In this case, I am absolutely loving Stefan’s regular gin in Negronis. His new facility still is located in the industrial park of Llucmajor. Yet, the building is an oasis of Mediterranean lifestyle with very beautiful interior design. When it comes to the gin itself the special things are that Gin Eva use only botanicals from Mallorca, except for the juniper and they distil every botanical separately.
The golden hour
We started our tasting of Stefan’s range with the S’Horabaixa. A gin only using juniper, thyme and lemon as botanicals. Stefan especially created this gin for Mediterranean Gin Tonics. The gin tastes especially of juniper in the form of a baked quality. Additionally, the thyme really takes the the flavour in a herbal direction. Finally, the lemon also adds a touch of freshness.
The best Negroni Gin
As mentioned above, I absolutely love the standard Gin Eva gin 3in a Negroni. The citrus notes just work wonders with the bitter and the vermouth. By now, Stefan uses only juniper, lemon, bitter orange, Canoneta orange and mandarins as botanicals. The result is a very citrusy gin with delicate juniper notes, but with the mandarin shining through nicely.
Olive Gin
I already know Stefan’s La Mallorquina Gin, but he mentioned that every batch tastes different. This one had very fruity olive note with a very smooth taste. Additionally, there was a slight spiciness. It was one of the few gins I could imagine drinking neat. However, this gin just screams Martinis.
Sweet oranges
Next, the La Canoneta Gin is Stephan’s ‘citrus forward’ expression with just two botanicals the name-giving La Canoneta orange as well as juniper. I probably do not have to tell you that this gin was bursting with bright orange notes. However, there also was a pronounced orange flower / Neroli flavour in this one. My wife especially enjoyed it!
Bergamots
Another of Gin Eva’s two botanical gins combines bergamots from Valencia with juniper. Obviously, the La Bergamota had a lot of bergamot flavours. Yet, I was impressed by its distinct Earl Grey tea note. This one should be excellent not only as a Gin & Tonic, but also in Gin Fizz variations.
Barrel aged and sweet
The last of Stefan’s gins was the Old Tom Gin. For this expression he takes his regular gin and ages it in Mallorcan red wine barrels which were already used three times for wine making. This takes out most of the tannins and leaves a slightly fruity flavour. On top of that, the Old Tom Gin has a sugar content of 20 g / l. Surprisingly, the Old Tom had a floral start, but soon warming spices with juniper took over. I enjoyed the Old Tom very much, as well as the bottled Martinez variation Stefan created with a carob eau de vie.
And now liqueurs
Last, but not least we also tried all five liqueurs from Stefan. While I already knew the mandarin liqueur, the Limoncello, the orange liqueur as well as the Red Citrus Bitter all were very tasty. Yet, the liqueur which especially stood out from the rest for me was the Licor de Fonoll. It reminded me of a high quality Pastis, but with its own twist.
