Madeiran Gin takes the gold

Gin produced by the Canning’s brand awarded at the prestigious International Wine & Spirits Competition.

 

 




The magnitude of nature and above all the power of the mountain serves as inspiration for the creation of a gin made in Madeira, the Gin Canning’s. The beverage is produced by Filipe Canning Clode, from the Companhia Nova de Aguardente firm with notes of the Laurel forest and two well-known fruits in Madeira, passionfruit and the Surinam cherry. The combination has just been awarded the gold medal in a blind tasting at the International Wine & Spirits Competition, one of the World’s most important beverage competitions, this year held in London.

Filipe Canning Clode, who descends from a family with a tradition in the art of distillation that goes back to 1927, tells Essential how this ‘is an inheritance of a knowledge accumulated through generations of hard work and which is always evolving’. In 2016 this former army officer opened a new firm atop a mountain in the Ribeira Brava Business Park where it started to produce gin instead of rum as was customary in his family: ‘a gin that sets itself apart for its quality’, its creator claims.

 

The International Wine & Spirit Competition has been going on for 49 years and involves businesses from around 80 countries. One of the initial stages involves a chemical assessment. Only beverages approved in this stage are then submitted to a blind tasting, the one in which the Gin Canning’s took the gold.

The beverage is commercialized and distributed by Empresa de Cervejas da Madeira who have also been receiving international requests. Filipe Canning Clode wants that those who buy a bottle of Gin Canning’s ‘upon opening it, somewhere in the world, will be reminded of Madeira. It’s good for people to miss the places where they’ve been’.