Nysura Distillery è un progetto di Dario Rinaldi, agronomo, appassionato di piante spontanee mediterranee e innamorato del gin.
Who is Dario?
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Dario, among other things and perhaps first of all, is an agronomist.
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Where does your passion for Gin come from?
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As teenagers, poor quality Gin was within everyone's reach, but the aftereffects of so many booze-ups were so devastating that I could not even bear the smell of gin for almost twenty years.
Then one evening (it was around 2015), sitting in a pub, a high school classmate of mine offered me a Gin Tonic. Faced with my clear refusal he explained that the world of Gin had changed in the last 10 years and that it was now wide and varied, made up of very low levels and very high peaks, like that of wine (another of my weaknesses).
How was the idea of ​​Nysura Distillery conceived?
Since that evening I literally fell in love with Gin and started studying its distillation methods, production, ingredients, styles, history and so on. I thus came to discover the vacuum distillation method at lower temperatures.
I had read that a guy in England had quit his job to set up a micro distillery in his home kitchen. However, instead of a traditional pot still he had customized vacuum distillation equipment. I was fascinated by this story and I decided that I wanted to do something similar in Sicily, and that I wanted to create a 100% Sicilian gin. And so I did it ☺!
What were the first steps you took you get to produce your own Gin?
By chance, doing some research on the internet, I came across a company in London that also offers assistance in developing recipes for new spirits.
I remember perfectly the moment when I decided to go to London and present my idea and ask for consultancy, it was a hot summer in Sicily and I was sipping one of my favorite cocktails, the Negroni, on the sofa in my terrace.
And did you go to London for real?
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Sure! I prepared a presentation of my project, with a potential list of Sicilian botanicals we could have used and explained my decision to want to distill by use of vacuum distillation. In Italy nobody did it at that time, and therefore it was more difficult, uncertain and expensive, but the smells and flavors would have been better preserved, an indispensable point for me since I wanted to work with delicate ingredients such as orange and lemon blossom. And above all to do something unique.
How else did you train to become an expert distiller?
In my London period I attended "How to open a Gin Distillery", a specialization course in which I learned the history of Gin, the different types of distillation, the trend of the Gin market and other very useful notions, which I now hope to to be able to put into practice to the fullest. I also attended several gin fairs and events! And of course I drank a lot of gins, in all possible combinations☺!
Did being an agronomist facilitate you on this path?
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Yes, among the many advantages, including the passion for everything that is earth, nature, botany, I can move easily in the choice of ingredients because I know their characteristics well.
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And what about juniper, which Gin is the basic ingredient?
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Here, too, being an agronomist allowed me to personally conduct research to understand in which places in Sicily the juniper grows, what is the life cycle and the most suitable period for foraging it.
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So juniper is also harvested in Sicily?
Absolutely, I forage it on Mount Etna. In person!
NYSURA DISTILLERY
©NYSURA DISTILLERY SRLS - Corso Vittorio Emanuele 231-233 - 94010 Nissoria (EN) - Italy - P.IVA: 01255970863