Ballito gin distillery claims top spot as South Africa’s best signature botanical gin at World Gin Awards

A new range of gin produced by Ballito’s Karoa Cara distillers so impressed judges at the most recent World Gin Awards in London, they declared it South Africa’s best signature botanical gin.

Based at Imbonini Business Park, the distillery began operations only three years ago, and was also judged South Africa’s best contemporary gin producers last year when they entered the world awards for the first time.

The new award-winning ZuluLarni Safari Gin is the latest range of craft spirits produced by the distillery, using only fresh botanical ingredients.

Master distiller and Karoa Cara founder, Elwin Barnes, said during development and testing stages they initially experimented by adding habanero chillis to the recipe, but determined it needed more flavour to produce a truly great product.

They found the answer by working jalapeno into the mix.

“It was exactly what was needed to balance the profile we had in mind and, with that, our signature botanical gin came to light,” Barnes said.

Karoa Cara crafted the country’s first cloudy gin, which scored top marks at last year’s world gin awards. Barnes said winning for a second year running was testament of the craft, skill and passion behind the distillery.

“Our golden kiwi fruit and jalapenos are grown in the rich soils of KwaZulu-Natal and we make use of local farmers to obtain most of our organic fruits,” he said.

Feedback they received from the blind tasting of their gin by more than 80 world-renowned judges, Barnes said, was astonishing, earning not only the top SA award, but also a double gold rating.

“To qualify for this, your score had to be over 98 points out of 100,” Barnes explained.

The ZuluLarni Safari Gin range was produced by macerating golden kiwi fruit for 24 hours before the actual distillation started, after which fresh green jalapenos were added to the vapour basket for a steam infusion.

This was then meticulously distilled in small batches, using only fresh botanicals.

The distillery has also partnered with Nkombe Rhino, a non-profit organisation which focuses on the protection of endangered species. A percentage of ZuluLarni sales goes toward the organisation.

Karoa Cara is also known for producing the world’s first spearmint and cardamom gin and the team pride themselves on growing their own, organic botanical ingredients.

Expect to pay around R379.00 locally for the gin, available at Lifestyle Tops, Alchemy, Rocks Liquors and Village Tops.

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