Why do craft gins love to use citrus and tea?

As the owner and bartender of the craft gin specialty shop 'Shinjuku Distillery,' this is a series where I talk about craft gin.
Previous:You can make delicious alcohol. But you cannot make alcohol that sells.

People do not choose alcohol based on taste alone.
That is why makers struggle.

How can I,
to those who haven't tasted it yet,
convey this alcohol?

As I search for that answer,
I notice something.

In craft gin,
there is a lot of citrus and tea.

Yuzu.
Mandarin orange.
Bitter orange.
Green tea.

Even when I go around drinking craft gin,
before I know it, I encounter
the same botanicals over and over.

At first,
I thought it was simply because they were delicious.

But,
when you handle hundreds of craft gins at a bar,
you start to see a slightly different landscape.

'This gin uses yuzu.'
When I explain it like that,
'That sounds delicious.'
is sometimes the response I get back.

But they haven't tasted it yet.
They shouldn't know the taste.
Even so,
they think it sounds delicious.

This is,
when you think about it, a strange thing.

It is not that they think it is delicious
because it uses yuzu.

The moment they hear the word yuzu,

It sounds refreshing.
It sounds like it would go well with Japanese food.
It sounds easy to drink.

Such impressions float into their minds.
But, in fact, that is not all.

The word 'yuzu'
does not just evoke the taste.

Winter. Japanese food. Japan.
Cleanliness. Elegance. Refreshingness.

It might be different for each person.

But,
the moment they hear the word yuzu,
they are even recalling landscapes and scents they experienced in the past.

People aren't imagining a "yuzu flavor."
They are recalling the experience of yuzu.

In other words,
the makers aren't borrowing a "yuzu flavor."
They are borrowing the experience of yuzu.

I realize something here.
This isn't just about craft gin.

People understand the taste of alcohol
by replacing it
with things they already know.
That is how they understand it.

This way of thinking
is not limited to alcohol.

If someone says, "That person has a dog-like personality,"
you somehow get a sense of their character.

If someone says, "This movie is Ghibli-esque,"
you can imagine the worldview.

People understand things they don't know
by replacing them
with things they do know.

I think craft gin
is the same.

That is why the makers

yuzu,
tea,
sansho pepper.

They speak the names of plants.

They don't want to sell plants.
They want to convey the spirit of that alcohol.
That is why
they borrow words that the drinker already knows.

I had always thought that botanicals
were nothing more than ingredients for alcohol.

Of course,
that is not wrong. But,

botanicals might actually be
a "metaphor"
to help people understand that alcohol.

However,
one question remains.

If craft gin
is being conveyed through metaphors,

can the alcohol really be understood
solely through metaphors that differ from maker to maker?

Next time, I would like to write about that.

[Shinjuku-Gyoemmae]
[Bar] Craft Gin & Whisky Bar Shinjuku Distillery

[Yotsuya-Sanchome/Araki-cho/Akebonobashi]
[Izakaya] Gin and Small Plates Distillery