Menaud Gin

In the gin world, there’s a trend towards terroir-driven styles that blend locally harvested botanicals into spirit bases made from local grain. While many try the approach, few actually nail it. Enter Menaud, a distillery and brewery based in Charlevoix, just north of Quebec City. The founders, who all grew up nearby and named the distillery after a bit of local lore, wanted to capture the chilly landscape of northern Quebec by collaborating with local wheat farmers and infusing their gin with botanicals that grow around the city. Unlike most gins, the focus isn’t juniper (the only ingredient that they import from England), it’s on everything else, including honeysuckle, glasswort, and haskap berries. The infusion is a base of 75% wheat and 25% rye, too, so the result is salty, floral, peppery, citrusy and woodsy. Local indeed.