Mahon, Xoriguer gin and a taste of British naval history

While staying in Mahon earlier this year, an unexpected treat was a visit to the Xoriguer gin distillery. I particularly like gin and I hadn’t realised Menorca had a tradition of producing it. I’d been familiar with Larios from southern Spain as I used to sell it back in my Oddbins days in the early 1990s, but Menorcan gin has been a very welcome recent discovery. I didn’t expect it to be so good or to have such an interesting history.

Es Castell at the mouth of the harbour, looking out to sea

For a number of centuries Mahon has been of great military significance due to its enormous natural harbour, and in the 18^th century it became the capital of Menorca while the island was under British rule. The city’s distinctive Georgian architecture is an elegant legacy of this period, as is gin; while stationed on the island, the high-ranking naval personnel didn’t want to forego their favourite tipple, so distilleries opened locally in response to this market. (Port Mahon features in Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander from the Aubrey-Maturin series.)

An alley in Mahon leading down to the harbour 

A Mahon street

By the time British rule and naval presence came to an end in the 19^th century, the taste for gin was well established on the island, although during the 20^th century the number of distilleries dwindled and Xoriguer is the only one to remain.

Standing outside this historic building down on the quayside of Mahon, you immediately appreciate the vast scale of the harbour and how the city perches practically overhead, keeping watch for any unwanted visitors.

The Xoriguer distillery is worth a quick visit to see the traditional old stills and to taste the range that includes liqueurs (coffee: particularly good) and make purchases in the shop. Xoriguer gin is marked by its pure, aromatic style, dominated by juniper, with a ‘secret’ mixture of herbs. 

A couple of the old stills, with American oak barrels in the background

The tasting area in the shop

Unlike most gin, it is based on grape spirit and is made traditionally on a small scale of 500,000 litres a year (Gordon's produce over a million cases a year), without the use of any additives. It is easy to sip neat (at only 38° proof) and is served locally mixed with bitter lemon (pomada), lemonade or with a small splash of soda or tonic and a slice of lemon. In our case we had the privilege of enjoying Xoriguer and tonic with lemons freshly picked from my mother-in-law’s garden, who we were visiting at the time – bigger and more intensely lemony than any I’d ever tasted. Total bliss for such a gin and tonic lover. Now, where's my glass...

Destilerias Xoriguer

Anden de Poniente

91 Mahon (Menorca)

http://www.xoriguer.co.uk/

http://www.thedrinkshop.com/products/nlpdetail.php?prodid=2713

Sobrasada: a spicy delight for meat lovers

When my in-laws first came to visit from Menorca, among other local goodies, they brought a sobrasada sausage. I'm a fan of all things meaty and it was my first experience of this Balearic delicacy: a versatile cured pork sausage with a good kick of paprika. I hadn't tasted anything quite like it before and really loved it. The picture below shows the picant version, with its red string, whereas the regular dolç version has a white string (see above).

Recently I finally got to visit Menorca and we enjoyed sobrasada with my in-laws who served it sliced with drinks. We also had it spread on small bocadillo rolls as a lunchtime snack – this is particularly tasty as some of the peppery oil leeches into the spongy white bread.

I was also keen to bring some back to London to try out in a recipe I'd noticed in Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes where sobrasada appears melted into a tomatoey sauce. The results were great: tasty chicken and vegetables with a spicy, well textured sauce. Lots of fresh, lively flavours. As in the recipe, we used chicken breasts, but next time I will use thighs instead and cook them for longer. (I'm not convinced about the breasts as they always seem dry and lacking in flavour.)

Chicken with sobrasada, courgettes and butter beans

100g dried butter beans, soaked overnight (or 225g butter beans from a tin or jar, drained and rinsed)
300ml tomato sauce (see below)
4 free-range chicken breasts
2 tablespoons olive oil
a good pinch of crushed dried chillies
75g sobrasada, sliced
350g courgettes, trimmed and sliced diagonally
a small handful of flat-leaf parsley, chopped
salt and freshly ground black pepper

For the tomato sauce
6 tablespoons olive oil
2 large cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes (or 1kg fresh ripe tomatoes)
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Serves 4

If using soaked, dried beans, drain and tip them into a pan. Cover with fresh cold water, bring to the boil and simmer gently for 25 minutes, until almost tender. Add half a teaspoon of salt and continue cooking for another 5 minutes or so until tender. Drain and set aside.

Make the tomato sauce. Gently heat the olive oil, add the garlic and cook until just colouring. Tip in the chopped tomatoes and simmer for 20 to 30 minutes until thickened. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside. Left-over tomato sauce can be frozen and is ideal served with pasta, grated parmesan and a few torn basil leaves.

Season the chicken breasts on both sides with salt and pepper. Heat the olive oil in a large sauté pan. Add the chicken, skin side down, and cook for 5 minutes over a medium heat until golden brown. Turn over and cook for another 5 minutes. Move the chicken to the side of the pan and add the chilli flakes and sobrasada, and allow the sobrasada to melt into the oil.

Turn the chicken over in the now spicy oil until well coated, then reduce the heat, scatter over the courgettes, cover and leave to simmer gently for 15 minutes.

Uncover the pan, add the butter beans and tomato sauce, re-cover and simmer for a further 5 minutes until the beans are heated through.

Scatter with chopped parsley and serve. (We had ours with some plain boiled rice.)

Wine recommendation

This dish is absolutely perfect for showing off a decent Rioja. I was amazed how well paprika goes with this type of wine – it melds beautifully with Rioja's sweet, smoky oak. Try this for yourself by nibbling some spicy chorizo while sipping a glass of even quite straightforward Rioja such as Crianza or a young Reserva. Wonderful.

Menorca: low season eating, drinking, exploring and relaxing

At long last we've had some sunshine here in London, but it's still feeling much too cold. But at least our little family recently had a very enjoyable change of scene. We (husband Nathan, three-year-old daughter Alice and I) uprooted for half-term and spent a week in Menorca. We were visiting family on the island and rented an apartment in Mahon (Maó) and were well prepared for cold, winter weather as snow had fallen a few days earlier. 

Just to set the scene, Menorca is the least developed Balearic island, despite having more beaches than Ibiza and Mallorca put together, and in February had a relaxed, out of season atmosphere. It was cold and sometimes wet but, as you can see from the pictures, some days were bright and clear. We sensed a calm continuation of normal, day to day life. Driving from one end of the island to the other takes about an hour and Mahon (see pics above) was an ideal base for exploring Menorca (although you definitely need to hire a car at this time of year). This elegant town, in the east of the island, is dominated by its spectacular harbour (the second deepest natural harbour in the world). It became the island's capital during British rule and was a key naval base during the 18th century, whereas the historic capital is Ciutadella on the western side. It's another port and it retains a somewhat haunting air of faded grandeur (see below).

Menorca has several layers of history in addition to having been a British colonial base. There is tantalising evidence of early civilisations as standing stones or 'taulas' are dotted around the countryside. Furthermore, the island was important to the Romans and later the Moors. Returning to the present day, in common with other Balearic islands, Catalan influence is strong and Spanish (Castellano) is often only spoken as a second language after Menorquí (a variant of Catalan). The British influence also continues as it remains a popular holiday destination and many Britons are resident on the island. Interestingly, as an ongoing legacy of British colonialism, gin is still produced here and is drunk widely by Menorquins (and will be covered more fully in a separate post).

As usual, I was keen to go food shopping and try out local ingredients and specialities and, luckily for us, Mahon's main markets in the Plaça d'Espanya were just moments from our apartment.

Bright eyed, super-fresh fish and seafood was displayed on granite counters in the horseshoe-shaped fish market and a wide range of local produce was available at the main market in an attractive building that was formerly church cloisters. Great buys include squid, Mahon cheese, membrillo (quince paste to accompany cheese), chorizo, sobrasada sausage and local patisserie (especially the distinctive spiral ensaimada – great with strong coffee).

Lemons were very much in season during our stay (but ours came from my mother-in-law's garden and were the best I've ever tasted). On the lower floor there's a supermarket open from 10am from 10pm with a comprehensive range (including something I'd never seen before – loose frozen seafood). Here we stocked up on basic items and drinks, including good value staples from Torres, Faustino Rioja, Codorníu Cava, Estrella beer, local Xoriguer gin and a bargain bottle of Pedro Ximenez from 1927 that cost us just less than 10 Euros. We enjoyed this poured over vanilla ice cream, as well as sipping it on its own at the end of the evening. Some wines are produced locally and what we tasted was quite typical of Catalan reds (similar grapes are planted here), but prices appeared high at nearly 20 Euros a bottle (perhaps aimed at the tourist market?).

Around town there were some notable shops, my favourite being a rather chic patisserie, Moll Dolç in the Carrer de l'Angel, and it turns out that some bars double as off-licences and offer food to take out. We discovered this just after arriving in Mahon, quite late on a Friday night, when my husband popped out for some provisions and returned with some melt-in-the-mouth hand sliced Iberico ham and a smart Catalan red. A memorable start to an unexpectedly satisfying week.

As a sort of post script, I shouldn't forget mayonnaise or 'salsa mahonesa'. The story goes that the recipe was taken back to France after the 3ieme Duc de Richelieu defeated the British at Mahon. Of course, we couldn't resist tasting it in situ, and here is Alice tucking into some alioli with salt cod croquetas and a sobrasada bocadillo in the El Muelle tapas bar by the port (Moll de Llevant).