First Impressions
The baobab is known as the tree of life — enormous, bulbous trees that can live for thousands of years, their trunks storing water through droughts, their fruit sustaining communities across Africa. The large, oblong pods taste sweet and citrusy, almost like sherbet — a unique natural flavour that no other fruit provides. Bayab gin, distilled in KwaZulu-Natal, takes this quintessentially African ingredient and builds a gin around it, sourcing seven botanicals from across the continent: Ghana, Zambia, and everywhere between.
Tasting
Seven African botanicals including juniper, baobab fruit, coriander, rosemary, cinnamon, coarse salt and citrus peel. The nose is pleasant dried spice — nutmeg, cardamom and coriander — with the baobab adding sherbet-sweet citrus. On the palate, spice notes meet mild kumquat fruitiness, baobab providing natural tanginess, coriander and cinnamon warmth, rosemary herbal depth, coarse salt adding savoury mineral quality. The finish is citrusy and clean with baobab sherbet lingering.
The Bottom Line
Bayab earns a 7 and Gold at San Francisco 2022 for bringing Africa's most iconic tree into the gin glass. The baobab's natural citrus-sherbet character is unlike anything else in gin — it provides sweetness without sugar, tanginess without tartness. A gin that tells the story of an entire continent through its most beloved tree.
