MEXICO CITY.- Jalisco’s most iconic drink may be tequila, but a new generation is putting other distillates made in the state on the map, particularly gin.
This week, “Juanita’s Gin” received recognition as the best contemporary gin in Mexico at the World’s Spirits Awards in London thanks to its flavor.
It is a completely handmade distillate made by the master distiller, Diego Díaz del Castillo. “It all started in high school when, with some friends, I made craft beer.”
His travels through Chiapas and his curiosity about spirits led him to study on this subject with Edgar Villanueva and, he tells us, “that is where the idea of making a gin came up. We made a contemporary gin so as not to have to mature in barrels because in at that time we didn’t have the capacity to do it. “
The dream of Diego and “Juanita” began in the kitchen of their parents’ house:
“The first time I distilled gin, I did it at my mother’s house, in the kitchen, and my sister loves gin so it was like ‘well, let’s make one’. I took the first sample and took it to a Family food and a party and everyone loved it. People started asking us for bottles. “
A friend of his helped him design the label and once he had that, he got to work:
“Before, it was all at my parents’ house. It was a ‘micro micro’ distillery and later we got a garden and there we set up a small winery. Before I was alone, now a friend is helping me, we are two people in the production.”
The completely artisan process to make the gin takes approximately two months from the start of production until the product reaches the consumer’s hand.
“We start from Creole corn, red corn, from there we obtain the alcohol, malting is made, after cooking, fermentation, it is distilled in column with copper dishes and there we obtain a neutral corn spirit that we then infuse with maceration with botanicals, depending on How many liters we are going to make is allowed to marinate and then we give it a final distillation in an Arabic-style copper alembic “.
On average they manage to produce “approximately 190 liters and let’s say that from zero to 100 of the process it takes us a month and then we let the bottles mature for another month. So let’s say it’s two months from when it starts to when the consumer receives it, two months pass” .
This process and its selection of ingredients was what made “Juanita’s Gin” recognized as the best in the country by the expert jury in London.
“They sent us an email asking us if we wanted to participate, we decided to go to London because it is a gin-producing country. You have to do the registration process, three samples are sent and it goes through three stages, let’s say two cuts and the final.”
“The gin was entered in the taste section. We passed the first two rounds. We did not win as the best gin in the world, but we did earn recognition as the best in Mexico.”
Currently, after what, says Diego, “was a very tedious, very slow process” after carrying out the legal procedures in which “it took us approximately a year to have the labels that allow you to market them” the “Juanita’s Gin” is You can buy it in different wine and liquor stores in the city and they already have plans to export this product from Guadalajara to other countries.
In the future, Diego Díaz del Castillo would like to see his other products receive the same recognition and that his brand continues to grow:
“I would love to have a whole team. That our distillate is also being recognized and also the other brands we make receive their recognition or awards, we want to release other distillates. Right now we have the agave distillate called ‘El chueco’ but the idea is have a bigger product menu. “
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