Purveyor of London spirit, Portobello Road Gin, has launched the world's first Pechuga Gin to ensure your Christmas celebrations and merry-making are filled with good cheer.
Created by master distiller Jake Burger, the limited edition Director's Cut No:3 Pechuga Gin pays homage to a unique distillation process used by Mexico's artisan Mezcal producers whereby a raw chicken or turkey breast - or pechuga as it translates to in Spanish - is suspended in the still, cooking in the slowly emanating vapours, adding subtle yet distinct flavours to the spirit.
To create the Pechuga Gin, Jake redistilled Portobello Road Gins signature 171 blend in a 400 litre copper alembic still with organic turkey breast and a flavourful combination of 13 botanicals: apples, pears, plums, currants, raisins, sultanas, apricots, brown rice, passion fruit, cinnamon, cassia bark, as well as nutmeg and mace that Jake harvested personally on the beautiful Spice Island, Grenada.
Traditionally, Mezcal De Pechuga is imbibed on occasions of great celebration such as baptisms, marriages and quinceañeras. The combination of dried fruit and spices in the Pechuga Gin results in a distinctly festive flavour; making it the perfect drink to toast the celebratory Christmas season.
The process of making the Director's Cut No:3 Pechuga Gin is incredibly inefficient, taking two bottles of regular Portobello Road Gin to make one bottle of the festive delicacy.
The Director's Cut limited-edition is a small-batch gin, launched every year to mark the birthday of Portobello Road Gin and it's founding director Ged Feltham. These unique blends allow the gin's directors to flex their creative muscles and introduce discerning drinkers to more unusual flavours and distillation processes. Previous Director's Cut blends include a smokey gin flavoured with juniper berries that were hand-smoked in Irish peat and a quintessentially English gin made using asparagus sourced from Cambridgeshire.
While bottles of Mezcal De Pechuga typically retail between £100 and £200, in keeping with the season of the goodwill bottles of Director's Cut No:3 will retail at £35 and is available to purchase from 1st November from Portobello Road Gin's website, as well The Distillery's Bottle Shop located on their namesake road.
Jake Burger, master distiller and director at Portobello Road Gin, says:
“My love for gin is matched equally by my passion for tequila and mezcal; and so for the third instalment in our Director's Cut series it was a natural choice for me to look across the atlantic and take inspiration from our Mexican spirit producing brothers and sisters.
“As the alcohol vapours pass through the turkey breast during distillation they add something almost indefinable to the gin. You wouldn't really say it was turkey flavoured gin, the flavour is very subtle, and whilst it adds it also takes away, absorbing some of the more intense fruit flavours and stopping them from overwhelming the taste of the gin.
“With its warming spices and dried fruits, this poultry-infused potable develops a distinctly festive flavour and we think that Christmas presents a perfect opportunity to drink this very special and uniquely indulgent gin.
“So with the launch of what we believe to be the world's first Pechuga Gin, as well as one of the most festively flavoured spirits, I wish you a Merry Christmas - or 'Feliz Navidad' as they say in Mexico.”
