Sometimes you need to see, touch and feel to understand. Connect with nature when the question is purely botanical. Experiment directly with the source of inspiration to understand the result: an extraordinary, artisanal distillate with surprising flavors that includes wild botanicals with a unique aromatic profile. Like Cherry Blossom, Lavender and Orange Blossom. The three GinRaw Flavors creations that join GinRaw Original.
This is what Botanical Experience by GinRaw proposes, an experience that takes place in Palamós, in the heart of the Costa Brava, and that suggests – as a main course – a botanical route with Evarist March from Cala de La Fosca to Platja de Castell, passing through unique places on the coast. A two-day immersion in the GinRaw universe, which makes a careful selection of botanicals for each of its gins. All of them are 100% natural and the distillate does not contain any type of additives: neither coloring nor added sugars.
The experience starts in the afternoon at the Finca Bell Lloc, a privileged place that includes Mas de Bell Lloc, a unique accommodation that sits on the origin of the town of Palamós, and the Celler Brugarol, a mysterious winery created by the architecture of RCR , recognized with the Pritzker 2017, where they produce ecological wines under the protection of DO Empordà.
The “Moreras” plaza welcomes visitors to enjoy a Gin Tonics station accompanied by the decorations that best extol GinRaw botanicals. Next is a visit to the Celler Brugarol, where the organic sensation of nature comes together, integrated with the lights and shadows of the winding corridors inside the winery. It is in an intimate room, beneath the vineyards, where the sensitive experience “Botanical Session” takes place, led by Arnau Marco, who has been the developer of the aromatic profile of GinRaw Flavors. In an interactive session, he explains the distillation and percolation methods that have been used to make GinRaw, always with the aim of capturing the best of nature, following the rules that arise when trying to interpret it.
Then comes the delicate tasting of each of the existing GinRaw: Original, Cherry Blossom, Lavender and Orange Blossom. The tasting takes place at a table integrated into the environment, where you can feel the forest and the intimacy of the dim afternoon lights. Tasting Gin has its technique and is shared with the participants, so that they can optimize their experience.
An outdoor dinner, with views of a beautiful Mediterranean forest that gives way to the illuminated Palamós beach, puts the finishing touch to the first day. It is a gastronomic experience based on organic products made by the Bell Lloc workshop, which even has its own flocks with which they make cheeses and ice cream, and other local products that are part of the commitment to the environment and the local productive fabric. The night ends with a last drink, from GinRaw's cocktail recipe book, created and inspired by bartenders who identify with the brand.
The second day of Botanical Experience by GinRaw begins first thing in the morning with a breakfast that follows the line of dinner the previous day (local and organic product) and then we move to Cala de La Fosca, in Palamós, where we will have a Foraging to learn about the botanicals that have inspired GinRaw to create its Gin from the hand of Evarist March, gastrobotanist at Naturalwalks and collaborator at Celler de Can Roca for more than a decade. Nature is his office and that is where he works best.
First, Evarist March places us in the environment and describes the Costa Brava, its climatic and orographic characteristics, making us aware of the uniqueness of this small space in the world. The Foraging progresses along the coastal path that connects Cala de La Fosca with Platja de Castell, while the gastrobotanist discovers plants and trees of great aromatic power, taking us to their origins, their traditional uses, placing us in their botanical families. Evarist March is an inexhaustible source of knowledge and a great disseminator, so the experience is absolutely interactive.
Some stops are a gift in themselves: in botanical gardens, on gentle slopes full of vegetation and at other iconic points where we have inspiring views of ports where sailors arrived: Phoenician, Roman, Greek and Arab. All of them brought treasures in the form of spices, seeds and other objects that are now part of our landscape or that we use on a daily basis. GinRaw is inspired by the botanical variety of the Catalan coast and its inland Mediterranean forests, but also by all the wealth that came from different cultures to its ports. It is this large number of links between the botanical world and culture that has remained rooted in the different places that have served as inspiration for GinRaw.
One of the most iconic stops on the route is Cala S'Alguer, declared an Asset of Cultural Interest in 1972, which imprints an infinite summer on the landscape, whatever the season of the year, thanks to the dazzling colors of the gates and windows of their fishermen's houses. And one of the best points to photograph this wonder is the Pineda d'en Gori, another of the Foraging stops, where we can enjoy the intense perfume of lavender that mixes with white pine.
Upon arrival at Platja de Castell, we are welcomed by a beautiful yet austere environment, where only a few plants full of flavor manage to survive. Afterwards, the route continues through a forest that takes us to the Barraca d'en Dalí, a small painting workshop-studio with an original and surreal touch due to its inclined door, which was a gift from a representative of the area so that Dalí could draw inspiration from it. This unique place has a link with GinRaw through creativity without restraints, of interpreting nature and turning it not only into original Gin, but into cocktails that transgress what is expected.
The route ends with the return to Platja de Castell, from where we will return to Finca Bell Lloc to enjoy a tapas meal that distills the culture of the place. The experience does not end here. After eating, a distillation workshop awaits us with the rotavapor, a technology that allows distillation using a vacuum at temperatures much lower than those of traditional stills, delicately extracting the best of each botanical, a technique that is used for the production of GinRaw Original. An opportunity to use everything we have learned, since we will distill botanicals that we will have known during Foraging with Evarist March, in addition to tasting the distillates that have been generated from the different routes that are carried out at different times of the year.
