How many tangelos go into making a year's worth of The Canberra Distillery's classic gin?
Canberrans can discover first hand at the distillery's annual Tangelo Day.
There, people can get a behind-the-scenes look at the distillery, as well as take part in the making of the gin by peeling a share of the 135 kilograms of tangelos that it takes to make a year's supply of classic gin. And if that wasn't enough, tickets also include a free drink, tacos from Tacontento and entertainment.
"It's our gin that we've been making since 2015 and it's very much going back to the spirit of that," The Canberra Distillery events, retail and customer engagement manager India Brown said.
"Because in 2015 Tim [Reardon, owner and founder] was making gin in his garage and peeling tangelos himself and with Thomas. So we love being able to go back to our roots, and it went so well last year that we've decided to do it again."
Tangelo is a very particular fruit to use in the distilling of London dry-style gin.
While others use the traditional method of lemon or orange, the tangelo - which is a cross between a tangerine and the grapefruit-like pomelo - offers a happy medium between those two flavour profiles. It's not as sweet as an orange, but not as sour as a lemon.
But because it is the key ingredient for gin, it means that every tangelo season - which is July to October - enough of the fruit needs to be peeled to last in the freezer for the entire year.
"We use the peel of the fruit, not the actual juice or the pulp, just the peel, and gives a nice citrus sherbet element to it," Ms Brown said.
"It's really important that we get as much of the actual skin of the tangelo, without any of the pith - the white bit - because that has a little bit of a bitter quality. And we want to make sure that we don't get as much of that on the skin as possible.
"It can be a little bit tricky, but we have all of the tools and all of the teachers to make sure that everyone can do it. And it's not the be-all and end-all. We usually have someone trimming the white bits off before we put it into our system."
Part of Tangelo Day is actually to create a community around The Canberra Distillery, both through the customers who come to the event, and the wider food and hospitality industry.
The distillery has always had its fresh produce supplied by Ziggy's Fresh - with their tangelos originating from the Riverina region as they're a little bit harder and easier to peel.
The leftover fruit and juice then go to different bars and restaurants around Canberra to use.
"We keep all the peels and we often keep a few bits of the fruit just to experiment with and have some fun with," Ms Brown said.
"And then we give all of the peeled fruits to different restaurants and bars so that they can make syrups and cordials and juices and things like that out of them.
"This year, we've definitely got Luna bar locked in to take them. Last year, I know Miss Van's took some, we gave some to a couple of bakeries, and a cocktail service, and we're working on a few more people to take them this year.
"So we're excited about being able to use every part of the tangelo and go through that entire life cycle."
Tickets for Tangelo Day are $20 from thecanberradistillery.com.au. Every ticket comes with a cocktail, tacos and 20 per cent off products.
