Gold shines through Ballito’s award-winning cloudy gin

A Shaka’s Head gin distillery has struck gold at the World Gin Awards, winning the Best South African contemporary gin category.

Distilling fresh, hand-harvested botanical ingredients in copper, Karoa Cara white gin is claimed to be the first cloudy gin produced in the country and the recipe, which took over 2 years to perfect, was only launched in August last year.

The perfectly-balanced gin, which bursts with robust flavour, wowed the international judging panel which included more than 80 experts from around the world.

Finalists and winners of the World Gin Awards are selected through a rigorous blind tasting and unique scoring process.

Held every February (this year held virtually), the awards aim to recognise, reward and promote the world’s best gins to trade stakeholders and consumers across the globe.

Co-owned by Harold and Sonnia Kruijer of Ballito, and Elwin and Janie Barnes of Mtunzini, the Karoa Cara Distillery based at Shaka’s Head’s Imbonini Business Park was founded just over 2 years ago after a long and arduous road of red tape, inspections, tests and licensing procedures.

“There is absolutely no shortcuts in this process,” Janie said.

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“Not only did we produce the world’s first spearmint and cardamom gin, but also South Africa’s first cloudy gin. We distil our gin slowly to ensure we extract maximum flavour and essential oils from all the botanical ingredients,” said Sonnia.

The team said when the gin is mixed with tonic and ice, the botanical oils are released which creates a stunning pearlescent glow – the cloudy appearance.

A standard day at the office sees the team get a single batch processed, which is done by adding all the heavier botanicals into a 250-litre pot still (the pot still is named after the Lion King’s Rafiki – pause and reflect on this for a moment).

This is left to macerate for at least 24 hours, allowing the flavours to blend.

The actual gin is then produced, but still needs to complete a process.

On the morning of distillation, before sunrise, all the fresh botanicals are prepared and the gin is distilled slowly before being allowed to rest and allow the flavours to come together.

Blending then starts with filtered water prior to bottling at the distillery itself.

The team pick and peel their own organic botanical ingredients.

From the distillery, bottles are distributed locally to shops and bars such Tops at Lifestyle, Alchemy and Wineology, and can be ordered online at theginguy.co.za.

The gin costs R450 per bottle.

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