It all began a few years ago, at the dinner table where 8 friends met in what would become a weekly ritual. To dinner, they added a new Gin to taste each week. The challenge of bringing something new week after week became harder and harder and almost reached the point at which it was impossible to surprise the group.
This was the cue for Luís Afonso, one of the 8, to get to work and start making his own Gin from scratch, one that would break from everything else they had tried. He bought a small copper still and began his quest of aromatic alchemy, in a long but gratifying process which culminated in the perfect mixture that would be tasted by the most important group of testers… Luis Afonso’s group of 8.
Disguised in a plain bottle, INseparable was given to the group to try and it was approved straight away. Approved to the point that they decided immediately that they were in the presence of a Gin that was worthy of being shown to everyone, not just the 8 friends.
They began to refine the recipe and getting it ready for production.
In all, they tested 93 botanical, but only 36 remained in the final recipe. To minimize the effect of inevitable variations in aromas that natural products suffer, they turned to Tec Labs at the faculty of science of the University of Lisbon which analyses all the botanicals for each batch and indicates any alterations they should make in the percentages.
The flavouring of the alcohol is done in two distinct steps. First, cold, when 34 of the botanicals are macerated and left in contact with the alcohol. The maceration time varies from botanical to botanical in order for each one to shine as much as the next. The already flavoured alcohol is then filtered into the still, where the two remaining botanicals are waiting in an aroma basket. Which botanicals are which? Only the 8 know.
INseparable has 45 volumes of alcohol and thus would be expected that it would have a marked alcohol aroma, but this is not the case and instead, it is the sweet and spicy notes that punctuate the nose. There is a sweet hit of honey but it is also easy to find the warmer notes of vanilla and cinnamon. In the mouth, INseparable keeps its smoothness and warmth. The identifiable notes on the nose also include cocoa and allspice.
