A while go there was speculation that sherry might be the “new gin and tonic” on the back of slightly optimistic hopes that people would start ordering bottles of fino instead of the currently fashionable goldfish bowls full of gin, tonic, and assorted fruits, nuts, berries, seeds, gumdrops etc. The region would certainly have taken the sales figures and let’s be honest, can there be an easier way to make money in the drinks business? Of course it proved to be hype: summer came and the goldfish bowls continued to dominate the tabletops.

If you can’t beat them you might as well join them, a number of the big groups already have gins in their portfolios and more recently we are even starting to see high end efforts where in addition to selling the gins the boys from Jerez are also leaving their mark. Just a few weeks ago I was supping on a martini made of fino sherry and Salcombe “Finisterre” gin aged in fino barrels by Bodegas Tradición, and now this, by Equipo Navazos.

According to their typically excellent ficha it is a London dry gin that has spent no less than four years in a fino cask. I am no expert on gins by any means but this certainly has an air of fino about it: nice almonds and sea breeze on the nose. On the palate I am not going to pretend I can pick much out, but once mixed with a tonic you again get the benefit of those aromatics: very pleasant stuff (if you like that sort of thing).

It is a logical step if you think about it: it is getting hard to find a wine region where they aren’t ageing the wine in an old sherry bota (including in Jerez itself of course), they have been ageing whiskies and brandies this way for years and recently you have started to see rums and the like. Also, while the flavours and aromas of gin and sherries may appear to be polar opposites, they are both dry and have that bite of saline bitterness. Apparently Equipo Navazos filled a few other casks too – including casks used to house all manner of sherries and brandies – so this may only be the first of a number of “numbers” dedicated to the ruin.

Great stuff and made for a nice gin and tonic at the end of a brilliant dinner in A’Barra. Even so, on balance I probably still prefer the bota’s original contents …

If you are going to have lunch with some top finos you need something really dry as an aperitif and here you go. A dry martini made up of a gin made by Salcombe in Devon and aged in a former fino bota shipped over by Bodegas Tradicion and a decent splash of fino from the same chaps.

When it comes to dry martinis I have very classic tastes but this fragrant, woody and saline version is very suppable indeed. Great stuff.