Hogwash not Pugwash flies the flag for Portuguese Gin …
Following a cruise on the beautiful river Douro, we’re going to kick off a season of Portuguese gin reviews with a distinctive spirit, which our Gin Scouts Bill and Lesley actually brought back from their last trip to the Canaries: it had somehow got pushed to the back of the larder after a rare tidy up. Enigmatically named Black Pig, rather than Captain Pugwash’s pirate ship, the ornate porcelain bottle actually portrays one of the porcine beasts to be found on the farm, where the Alentejo distillery grows some of the botanicals which help craft a distinctive fruity flavour.
And rather than being Navy Strength, it comes in at a regulation 40% but has no trouble holding its own with other brands nudging the numbers game, thanks to a sturdy finish that offers a hint of spice. Also sourced from the surrounding Montado ecosystem, the recipe relies on lemons, dune (as in sand grown) juniper and that Mediterranean stalwart, Rosemary.
The result is a multi-award-winning concoction which scooped Gold at the 2019 Frankfurt International Wine Beer and Spirits, as well as a Silver from the World Gin Awards judges the following year. Other successes followed at competitions in Berlin, Lyon and closer to home in London.
Black Pig has a fresh flavour and nose that you might not anticipate from the branding, and we would rank it quite highly amongst other gins our Scouts have discovered hiding in porcelain bottles such as Nordes and Macaronesian White Gin, the latter which is cut with water filtered through Canarian volcanic rock. I must, however, conclude that Black Pig lacks sufficient character to displace Gutsy Monkey from our Top Ten.
For anyone interested in hearing more about gins from the land of Port Wine, we have half a dozen more profiles to recount.
And a bottle of Black Pig can be purchased from the distillery for around £26 – plus a hefty delivery fee of £12.
