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.