Animus Distillery Ananas Gin 500ml 2021

Animus Distillery Ananas Gin 500ml is a pineapple-driven gin from the Macedon Ranges bottled at 50 per cent.

Tiki cocktails and questionable lounge music are Luke Jacques's stated influences, and this second release follows them all the way. Fresh pineapple takes up most of the botanical load, with ginger, turmeric and galangal cutting across the fruit's sweetness. Makrut lime joins pineapple sage, lemon verbena, lemon myrtle and lemon balm, every one cut and prepared the morning of the run, for complexity, and ground sesame seed builds an oily texture. After distillation, pineapple flesh and rind, with some lemon and lime, steeped in the spirit in stainless steel for a full twelve months. Bottled without added water, the dilution coming from fruit juice and oils drawn out in steeping. No colour, no sugar.

Explosive and layered, with real pineapple weight and a spicy undertow. The distillery suggests elderflower tonic with fresh fruit and leaves, and that works well. There is texture enough to sip it over ice and intensity enough to stand up to coconut in a tiki drink.