Satsuma Gin: Made With Mandarins Grown on an Active Volcano

The oranges in this gin grow on the slopes of a volcano that is currently erupting.

Sakurajima has been actively venting for decades. Ash falls on the surrounding area year-round. And that is where Sakurajima komikan is grown.

The Fruit

Komikan is Japan's smallest mandarin, roughly four centimeters across.

Growing it is a genuine nuisance. Volcanic ash falls constantly, even on fruit cultivated in nearby greenhouses, and it has to be brushed off by hand. The harvest window is about a month long.

Turning a fruit that difficult into a gin is, among other things, a way of having it available for the other eleven months.

The Base

Komasa doesn't use neutral grain spirit. The base is 100% rice shochu, made from local Kagoshima rice with white koji.

That's a running theme in Japanese gin, the base is usually whatever the house already distills. Komasa Jyozo was founded in 1883, first making spirits for local shrines, then shochu, then liqueurs in the 1950s, and finally gin in 2018. The rice shochu was already there.

It gives the gin a soft, faintly sweet foundation that a neutral spirit wouldn't.

What It Tastes Like

A juicy citrus punch up front, bright and unmistakably mandarin rather than generic orange peel.

Underneath that, a savory, coriander-forward undertone keeps it from turning into fruit juice. That balance is the whole trick: it's sweet-smelling and dry-tasting at the same time.

How to Drink It

A gin and tonic, garnished with orange rather than lime.

It also makes an excellent Negroni, the mandarin sits very well against Campari's bitterness, and we'd happily build one with the Scarlet amaro instead.

Over ice on its own is fine too, which isn't true of most gins.

Pair It With

Fried and salty. Karaage, tebasaki, shake shake fries.

Citrus and fried chicken never misses, and this is essentially that pairing in spirit form.

Try It at Juraku

Satsuma Gin is on the gin list at Izakaya Juraku, Lower East Side.