Review: Etsu Double Yuzu Gin

Etsu Double Yuzu Gin is widely available in Australia.

Etsu Double Yuzu Gin is a Japanese gin. It’s produced on Hokkaido Island and plays as a fresh, zesty gin, as you’d expect of a gin made to emphasis a variety of citrus (yuzu). This gin is widely available in the liquor supermarkets of Australia.

Review of Etsu Double Yuzu Gin:

It’s a fragrant gin, a bit tart, a bit sweet-sour even, with a coriander-like bitterness to the finish. I drank through a bottle three ways; with soda, with tonic (2 x types), and in a couple of (slightly) different iterations of negroni. Always on ice and mostly without garnish, save for orange peel with the negronis.

The first couple of times I drank Etsu Double Yuzu Gin it was in a negroni, and I didn’t think much of it. There was nothing off-putting but I had it, in my mind, on the '“don’t purchase again” list, simply because it felt a bit bland. I was asking too much of it; it was getting lost in a negroni. I know this now because it came alive with tonic. I didn’t love it with soda so I finished the bottle off in G&T mode only, and was more than happy with it in that form: lots of herbs, lots of citrus, blossomy, fresh, energetic, all good G&T things.

Yuzu itself would arguably be the best garnish but, more practically, I’d imagine that a slice of lemon would be tops, if garnish is your thing.

Bottle was purchased with my own hard-earned.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of the highly respected The Winefront site.

Mattinson has been a respected wine critic and photo-journalist since 1987. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the prized Best Australian Sports Writing Award.

Mattinson puts a score out of 100 on every wine that he reviews. But what he’d rather do, is tell you the wine’s story.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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