Letherbee Gin "Autumnal" Fall/Winter 2019

The price of tea was too high for some people in old Kyoto, while court nobles and merchants drank tea replete with rich green matcha, most could only afford a few small leaves per cup. To fill out their tea, people turned to something simple, rice. They roasted rice until some kernels popped like popcorn and mixed the roasted rice in with green tea. What they found was more than cheap tea filler, roasted rice gave the tea a warm, nutty flavor and a starchiness that stuck to your stomach. The blend of roasted rice and green tea was called genmaicha and it grew in popularity around japan and recently has spread to the world market. It was in genmaicha that we discovered the full satisfying flavor of roasted rice and we wanted to make something of it. But Letherbee doesn't make tea, they make gin.