Gintossen just LOVE Danish Gin, and were very delighted when we in the beginning of January 2018, was so lucky to be invited to Radius Distillery in Måløv, to spend a couple of hours with Master Distiller Kristian Larsen and the amazingly beautiful Müller Pot Still in the destillery.
The distillery has not been producing that long - actually they were after a long process with the authorities, and subsequent rebuilding of the destillery, not ready to destill until the spring of 2017. But from then on, things have really progressed, and Kristian have in a very brief time, managed to place the distillery on the map, with a couple of really great - and partly different Gins.
With a background and daily work in the pharmaindustry, both Kristian as well as the team behind Radius Lab, might have a slightly different approach to the process, than many others would have. Being educated and working as a pharmaceut, there is no doubt that Kristian knows about the chemical reactions and that this is a huge advantage, and thereby save a lot of frustrations and tests with the products.
But even more important is probably Kristans approach, to the making of Gin. He is not trying to go with the flow, and do the same as everybody else - on the contrary! He is both trying to rethink and re-interpretate, but in his completely own way. He is not even letting him self inspire by others, by looking at their products. Actually its really not that meny, he even tastes - he'd rather just drink his own products. And honestly Kristian - with the quality found in your products, we really can't blame you!
There is in all products, processes, ingredients and surroundings around Radius Lab, a tremendous love and honesty. They only use the best ingredients, and currently looking into making everything 100% organic - which is not that easy in this business. But there is one more thing, giving everything an extra dimension - which is the history....! This being the history behind the team, behind the products or the ingredients - all the way to the handpressed dymo-label, manually pressed in hand to each and every bottle. If this is not true love to the product, we don't know what is then :)
And this love, you don't have to search for very long, when tasting the results of all this effort. We were so lucky, that Kristian was distiling, while we were visiting. Not Gin this day - but Calvados on Holsteiner Cox apples, which will subsequently be stored on barrels. We had the chance to taste the final destillate, and oh my god - what an explosion of flavour! As mentioned, Kristan really wants to create a 100% honest product, and therefore nothing else but yeast was added to the coldpressed juice, which then fermented and to about 6% alcohol, before the being distilled. So - a completely pure and clean product - but packed with flavour, already before the storage on barrels. We can hardly wait for the finished product, and will stand first in queue, to secure a bottle when it's ready.
And then Kristian even told us, that this Calva was ment to be made on Guldborg apples, which is a childhood favourite for Kristian. This apple have even more flavour as well as acidity and sweetness, and therefore even more suitable for making Calva. Unfortunately the Guldborg apple is a very delicate apple, and therefore no longer so popular among plantationowners, and almost impossible to find. But during a gintasting on Falster in fall 2017, Kristan met a owner of a plantation, who still had some trees with Guldborg, he never had the heart to cut down. And it didn't take long to decide, that Radius Lab wanted these apples. Unfortunately it was late in the season, and not many apples were left, as they had hoped. So the Distillery quickly ran out, as they were also being using in the Batch 16 Gin. But Kristian promisses, that there will be made both in and Calva next year, on Guldborg apples, as the distillery have ordered all the apples these trees can produce, in the next season!
Well - it's Gin which is our primary interest and especialy we had heard a lot of great stuff, about Batch 18. The Distillery name all recipes as Batch xx, and at the time of writing the Destillery have got to number 18. But according to Kristian, there have been more than one batch, which never made it on to a bottle - simply because they did not work, or just failed miserably. So don't launch a search for all batches, from 1 to 18.
As mentioned, we had heard rumours about Batch 18, being something really interesting. And this batch is also all about apples - but this time about Holsteiner Cox, which in structure and taste, resembles Guldborg a little bit. Besides the apples, also juniper (ofcourse), lemonzest, rosebuds and fennel seeds giving a hint of licorice, have made it into the pot.
The result is a unusually delicious Gin, with a beautiful creamy palate, followed by the notes from the apples, citrus, fennel and rose. The balance between each botanical, is completely magic: None of he used elements are taking over the complete scene, but instead wait in line to present themselves, one by one. Batch 18 is in our opinion, one of the most delicious danish gins, launched in 2017!
As briefly mentioned earlier, Batch 18 was not the first Gin, Kristan distilled on apples, as Batch 16 was also made on apples - which was the before mentioned Guldborg apple. Unfortunately they cant destill more of this Gin, as they as mentioned is out of Guldborg apples, and also with this will have to wait for next season - but here is also something to really look forward to!
Besides Batch 18, we also tasted Batch 5 & 10 which was both really nice Gins. Batch 5 is destilled on green pepper, staranise, corriander and mustard seeds (!!!) besides the junipers. We must admit we were not able to identify the mustard seeds - not even after being told about their presence - but we imaging this is more due to the fact, we have never tasted mustard seed in this context. They did however, present themselves with a pleasant "zing" on the tongue, which together with the corriander seeds, worked amazing!
Batch 10 is a little more traditional in expression, with a more dominant juniper as wellas angelica root, cardamom, corriander seed, citruszest and white pepper. And there might be a little staranise in the pots as well, as Kristian mentions :) If it's at all allowed to say so, we would probalby categorize Batch 10 as a more maskuline Gin, which we imagine will appeal more to the male sex, as there is so much power on the botanicals.
We will retur later, with a description of the different Gins and the tonics working best with each of them, when we have been through a tasting with all the tonics we imaging could work with them.
A million thanx to Kristian, for having opened the doors for us, and patiently answered all our questions, and listened to our comments :) It was an amazing evening!
Read mush more about Radius Lab, on the distillerys website.
