Winner of the BEST OF 2015 Flaviar Community Award!
 
This Spanish Distillery is located just outside of Barcelona, in Vilanova, a small fishing village that lies between Costa Brava and Costa Dorada. The Distillery is owned by the Giro Ribot family, which has been in the Wine and Spirits business since 1835. The family’s first foray into Gin began in 1940 when Manuel Giro Sr launched Gin MG, now one of Spain’s best selling Gins.
 
Years later grandsons Mark and Manuel Jr wanted to continue the family tradition and crafted their own Gin, inspired by the Mediterranean climate, using locally sourced botanicals. To produce Gin Mare they used the family housed in a chapel that was once a monk’s retreat. Talk about the Holy Spirit!
 
Gin Mare truly is Mediterranean, in spirit and in taste. The premium barley base is infused with traditional Gin botanicals, but also specialties of the Mediterranean — basil from Italy, thyme from Greece, rosemary from Turkey, citrus fruits from Spain, and their liquid gold: The ARBEQUINA OLIVE; the only olive in the world with its own Designation of Origin.
 
Due to the low yield of the Arbequina olives when juiced, they have to use an astounding 15 kg of olives per each distillation batch. The citrus they add is macerated for a full year before being used, while other botanicals take around 36 hours. All of these botanicals are individually distilled in a 250-liter Florentine still, and are blended together only after the individual distillations have taken place.