I caught up with Anand Virmani from Nao Spirits recently, the mastermind behind the Jin Jiji and Hapusa gins that are part of a new craft spirit movement in India. I’ve been obsessed with these babies for weeks on end and I was excited to finally teleconference with Anand from Goa, India where the distillery is located. I’ll go into more of the details later, but there’s an amazing story that I want to tell you right now concerning the source of the Himalayan juniper used in the gins and how Anand once drank what could be a Negroni made at the highest elevation ever.
It was after individually distilling more than 100 different Indian botanicals, experimenting with potential flavors, that Anand got the idea to search out juniper grown distinctly within the country, rather than continue to source it from Macedonia as he had done for previous gin projects. He made the trek to Khari Baoli in Delhi, the biggest spice market in South Asia, to see if he could find a vendor sourcing Indian juniper. After two days with no results, he finally came across a tiny, hole-in-the-wall shop where he showed the proprietor a photo of the plant. The man went into his desk drawers and came back with a tiny bag of what looked like juniper and smelled somewhat like juniper, but neither man was sure.
Since he was already planning a trip to the UK the following week, Anand asked if he could take the bag with him and ask some of his distiller friends in London what they thought. After running the juniper through a still at a friend’s distillery, they both confirmed that the resulting spirits both smelled and tasted like real juniper. He had found his source. Returning to the shop in Delhi the following week, he told the owner he’d like to place an order of whatever he called that plant. The man answered: “Hapusa.”
After launching the Hapusa brand, Anand and his partners decided to take a trip to the source of the juniper in the Himalayas, hoping to document the experience for their website and social media sites. It was a 15+ hour drive from Delhi to the village from where they would make their way into the Rohtang Pass (click here for a cool video I found of the landscape). It turned out to be a much more complicated journey than they had prepared for, as they would need to get permission from the locals to enter the site of the juniper. After driving hours from the village in a tiny car (manned by an aspiring race car driver, according to Anand), they arrived at the mountain entrance, but it turned out the Rohtang Pass into the Himalayas is only open from 9 AM to 6 PM daily, and they didn’t arrive until after 8 PM.
The driver went and spoke to the guard who was willing to look the other way and let them in, but not long after they began their ascent up the narrow, winding mountain roads it became clear why the pass closed so early: at such a high elevation (over 13,000 feet) the cold evening air creates black ice on the roads.
As they began fish-tailing and sliding around each bend, Anand and his friends begged the driver to slow down. “I know what I’m doing, I do this all the time,” he answered confidently each time they pleaded. Finally, they reached the site of the juniper and along with their photographer they got out of the car and did their sightseeing. On the way back, however, it was now much colder and as they approached one of the curves, the driver found that the car breaks were not responding. Anand saw his life flash before his eyes as they approached one of the bends, but just before reaching the edge of the cliff the car hit a huge pot hole and came to a stop. The boys got out to survey the damage and found a huge oil leak, among other problems. They couldn’t get much of a phone signal so high up in the mountains, so they began walking until they could get within range and call for help.
The group managed to get a hold of a tow truck, but it was going to be at least three hours before it could reach them, maybe longer considering the pass was closed and no one was supposed to be on the road. Anand had stowed a bottle of Hapusa, a bottle of Campari, and a bottle of sweet vermouth in his bag, so now seemed as good a time as ever to have a drink. They huddled together in the car to keep warm as Anand mixed Negronis for the group and the Mountain Negroni was born! “We thought about calling it the Rohtang Negroni,” Anand said as he finished the story; “But we didn’t think anyone would get the reference. So we stuck with Mountain instead.”
The Mountain Negroni
1 1/3 oz. Hapusa Himalayan gin
1 1/3 oz. Campari (or other bitter liqueur)
1 1/3 oz. sweet vermouth (I use Volume Primo)
-David Driscoll