the-restaurant-guys_2_11-04-2025_125253 1:15

Hello everybody and welcome. You are listening to the Restaurant Guys. I'm Mark Pascal and I'm here with Francis Shot. Together. We own Stage left and Catherine Lombardi restaurants. In New Brunswick, New Jersey, we're here to bring you the inside track on food, wine, and the finer things in life. Hello, mark. Frankie. So today we're gonna have a little later in the show, the two founders of the company that makes our favorite gin in the world. Procera. We're gonna have Guy Brennan and Alan Murungi on from Nairobi. Is it really our favorite gin in the world? You tell me. Yeah. Yeah. It really is. And they make three kinds. The only difference is it's our first and second favorite gin in the world. Yeah, that's for sure. And uh, two of the three, two out three ain't bad. Two of the three we really love. All the gins are great. It looks very, very good. Very. Genes are great, very good. But two of them are our, two of three best gins in the world for sure. Uh, so you know that distilling is very hard. No, I not being a distiller, I have no idea. It might be really easy. So I sat on the, and I you do it in a bathtub, how hard can it be? I intend, you should see the things I do in a bathtub. You know, it's amazing that you don't know what I'm gonna talk about and how close you've come to what we're gonna talk about. Uh, and I'm gonna talk to these guys about the fact that I sat, I judged for the American Distilling Institute. Years ago, I spent several years judging for 'em and I always on the gin panel. Mm-hmm. And so that is micro distillers, you know, submit their gins for judging and, and comments. And a lot of my comments were like, Ew, no, that's not true. So it's very hard. People think so, people are gonna make whiskey, they'll often make vodka because whiskey takes, you know, five, seven years to get your money back. 'cause you gotta age it. Yeah. And vodka, you finish and you know, then send out on a truck the next day. Yep. And they think gin as well. 'cause it's a white spirit. It doesn't have to age, but gin man, those botanicals, they taste like soap more often than not. Unless you really know what you're doing. Well, especially when people use lavender, right? Laves. Oh cardamom. There you go. That's one. That's another one. And honestly, the cardamon, they can make not taste like soap. But all of the gins are heavy cardamom. Mm-hmm. Like, what is wrong with you Gin Beal. It's not all cardamom, it's juniper. Yeah, but you're right. Lavender can make it taste like soap. A lot of the botanicals make it taste like soap. But I want to go beyond that in the, in the spirit of making whiskey is hard. Here's from People Magazine. Um, people Magazine. That's one you read all the time. Yeah. No, but I got this, I was an aggregator. I got it from, so, and this is, this is not funny. this is from Russia. As reported by People Magazine, at least 25 people have died. Oh my God. After purchasing $1 Bootleg vodka in the Lenin grad region of Russia, several more people have been, reported as injured. The incident in question took place last Friday in Slan Sea and is being described as a mass poisoning. Nikolai B and Anova were detained for an investigation into the deaths methanol. Methanol baby. Wow. You know what the lesson here is? No self distilling. No, no. What? You wanna spend at least a dollar 25 on your spirits. You are horrible. Yes. Even in Russia, if it's a dollar a bottle for the vodka, no. No. Yeah. Don't ever try to distill at home, you know, fermentation at home can, can. Give you the poops, but do not distill at home the consequences. Much, much higher. you know, they used those jokes about, and during prohibition, people would go blind. That's true. You, you can die. Well, don't, if you remember there was a beer from Brazil that we used to carry here and everybody really thought, oh, that's really delicious. It's really delicious. Or like, so. do you get, it's like this chocolatey, there's like almost a banana flavor in the background. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you remember that? Do you remember? I do remember that, yeah. And so we carried the beer for a long time and you know, it was an interesting beer. 'cause it was always a little different too. Yeah. It was one of those like super microbrew before super microbrews and it was really different. And then we started doing some research on poisonous alcohols that occurred during fermentation. How can you tell? And one of the ways you can tell is they taste like bananas. Yeah. And I'm like. Ah, we're not gonna carry that beer anymore. That's it. I don't think that's over. That's, I don't think that was the source of the banana and the jingu. No one ever got by the way to the, I dunno, man, to the Shingu people, uh, on behalf of me and my lawyers, I would very much like it. For you not to sue me. We're not in any way insinuating No, but it's true. That, but, but there's all sorts of stuff like, it's possible, like with methanol, you may not even taste it. not a good, not a good story. So that your bathtub gym comment was uh, right on the money? I guess it was. I guess it was. Alright. So I want to talk a little bit, just for a minute or two about something that you do that makes me absolutely crazy. Do you have this on an Excel sheet somewhere of all the, all the different things. I didn't rank it, I didn't rank it with the list of things. This is column A number 472 things that Francis does that make me crazy? Okay, go ahead. It's the top 80 lists. Okay. All right. Anyway, uh, you are not as guilty of this as, as other people who were in your family. Oh my. Okay. All right. You're attacking my whole family. I love this here. I'm time, I'm attacking your whole family. I attacking, attacking your entire tribe. This, it will rumble is going to come under, is going to get, uh, excoriated what's coming to them. Yes. Okay. Let's go. we had an event here Yeah. Uh, it was an anniversary party for the celebrating, the anniversary of, of Kaha Lombardi restaurant. Yes. And we invited some, some special people who were involved in the, in the making of Kaha Lombardi restaurant. Yes. Development in early years. And we had some really great people come, two of my favorite people who've ever worked here. Um, I'll call 'em out, Chris and Stephanie right now. Okay. Okay. Been called out, uh, came to the event, had a great time and about dessert time. Yeah. They were gone. Oh, I didn't know where you're going. They were just gone. Yeah. And we had this great party and great event. And I loved seeing 'em. I loved talking to him. Where, where Good stuff and, and. And they were gone. Yeah. You, I know what they did. You want me to say it or you wanna say? You can say it if you want. They're not even Irish, but they Irish goodbye. That's what they did. And it's not just my family, it's, it's my whole ethnic background in Italian. They Irish goodbye me. Yeah, man. And to an Italian person, there's really nothing worse you can do. Oh, okay. Do you know, I don't know if you know this about Italian people. Yeah. The amount we love you. Yeah. Is correlated to how long it takes to say goodbye. Yeah. And in how many different rooms? We say goodbye to you. That's why we, so we say goodbye to you in the dining room. Yeah. Then we say goodbye to you in the kitchen. Then we say goodbye to you inside the door. Then we say goodbye to you outside the door. Then we walk you to your car. Then we say goodbye to you again. Then we hug you, and it might take 10 minutes, 20 minutes, sometimes an hour. Do you know why the Irish goodbye was invented? Uh, 'cause people don't like you. The fuck I Italian. Why you say goodbye? I say hello. Hello? Hello? I don't know why you say goodbye. I say hello. It's, it is how much I love you. Hold on a second. I haven't had such an appropriate song lyric in a long fucking time. I said the whole lyric makes sense. We and the Irish say hello, hugs and kisses. Here's a present. I made you a soda bread. You're Italian. So you throw out the soda bread. Yeah. And then we have, that's the hello? And we're like. I'm not gonna make you go through all that. I'm not gonna interrupt the party, interrupted the party nine different times. Say goodbye. I slip out the back door. Pretend like I'm going for the bathroom. I keep fucking going. I get in the cab, I'm gone. You're like, and you think fondly on me the next day. No, no. I'm Italian. I think What a jerk off. You left my party without saying goodbye. I Irish goodbye to your son's girlfriend's birthday party last fucking night. I did. I did. I did the same thing. I ha I have one cousin. My cousin Ronan, we used to go out in bars and he would, it's like the extreme Irish goodbye, like we would be out drinking the two of us. Mm-hmm. And he would go out for a smoke and I'd watch him get into a CAD and go home. I was like, this, that's not an Irish goodbye. That's just an asshole. Right. But no, I, I Irish, I think. It has its utility. I don't wanna interrupt your whole party. Goodbye. Goodbye. Oh, NOCO. Hey that, no, goodbye Har. Like that's my moment to show you how much I love you. Send me a note. You don't get it. Send me a note. You don't get it. 'cause no one loves you. You don't get it. Just send me a fucking email. France I, you know, I always send a text. Had a great time. It was great seeing everybody. I'm safe home. Anyway. Well, so let's go talk to smarter people than we shall we. A good idea. By the way, that is the story of every single episode. That's true. I'm definitely having a martini in this episode, by the way, way for sure. We'll be back in just a moment. talking with Guy Brennan and Alan Murungi with one of the best gins, maybe the best gin in the world. You can find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

Francis 9:55

Hey there everybody. Welcome back. Our guests today are two guys who are shaking up the gin world, literally. Guy Brennan and Alan Marge are two of the founders of Proa Gin. And oh my, there is something new under the sun. Proa is an African gin distilled entirely from African botanicals, including it's the first gin in the world, uh, from fresh or wet juniper harvested from some very special. Trees on the Kenyan Highland, and the story is just as good as the martinis. we'll get into the specifics, but we wanna start off by saying, mark and I, this is our favorite gin in the world. And that's, that's amazing.

Mark 10:29

Welcome to the show, gentlemen.

Francis 10:30

mark. They have drinks. I'm gonna make you some drinks.

Mark 10:32

Terrific. So I have to start the show by telling you guys, I heard your story. You know Robert Simonson from the mix. did an article on your gin a and I heard the story and you know, the, the story of, well, our, regular gin comes from, just a specific kind of tree in a very localized area. And then we have this super premium gin that comes from the juniper of just one single tree. And we pick the best tree every year and we make our gin. I never wanted to hate anything as much as I wanted to hate this gin. When, when I heard the story, I was like, that they are so full of crap. It's unbelievable. This is just one of those, you know, marketing somebody, somebody drew up the marketing plan before they made the gin, and then all of a sudden, a friend of mine actually uh, stopped at a duty free shop when he heard us talk about the gin. Brought a bottle to Francis' house for us to taste at a party. And it was revolutionary. I mean, it, it, it changed the world. I, I had a revelation. So, uh, tell us a little bit about the gin, it's origins and your ridiculous story. Alan, tell us about the juniper forest. So let's start with, with where you choose your juniper from, and where the, the blue dot, you're kind of base gin. Now again, base gin. We need to talk about a gin that retails for 90 or a hundred bucks. So when we talk about the base gin, we are still talking about a pretty elevated, uh, experience. So tell us about the blue dot and, and how that came about. Francis is bringing us martinis

Alan 12:12

I'll start from the, the origin of the forest.

Mark 12:14

I didn't know we were getting biblical, Alan.

Alan 12:19

Yes. This is east Africa. Yes. You were getting biblical. they're actually very beautiful forest. They sit, um, about an hour outside of Nabi. And so it's where we, we, I grew up where my wife grew up. Um, so these are trees that we are used to seeing and monkeys really the, the fruits of the trees. And one of the stories I always tell is my father-in-law when he heard about the gin and he heard about what I was doing in the US and the fact that we are selling in the US and other countries around the world. he asked making a gin out of these fruits which monkey and people are drinking it. It was like, yes, we are monkeys aren't so That's fantastic. Exactly. They is something that we didn't.

Francis 13:00

All right, I wanna interrupt. So. I need to interrupt you for one second because as we all know, martinis and pasta are the two things that must be eaten immediately. so I just made, uh, a six to one Procera, blue dot gin martini with Dolan dry, and we're gonna have a toast. I, I expressed a twist on the top, but I also need you to explain while we have this handy, Um, with all of your bottles of gin come with this little. Jar of salt. What the hell am I supposed to do with this?

Guy 13:29

Well, there's a, there's a lot of things people think you could do with it. and uh, we've had a lot of troubles getting some through customs a lot of the time. But that is actually a vanish for your cocktails. So that is a physical saline solution. So pinch of that, that is all of the botanicals in the same ratio as the gin is distilled. they're fresh botanicals, they're not spent. And with a, uh, one third Indian Ocean, Cecil from Zanzibar. Two thirds the mechanical recipe. A pinch of that in a martini comes into a dirty martini on top. Um, slightly lifts it as But bartenders of the steak with bit of saline. So this is our saline. This is our garnish for our cocktails.

Francis 14:06

So this goes on top of the martini. What do I do with it?

Guy 14:09

Yep, absolutely. Or if you were stirring it, you can put it in as well as you want. Um, sometimes it could be on the rim of red snapper it, pinch of that image, gin Tonic, which it was designed for. As you will, it's a physical saline solution.

Francis 14:21

It's extraordinary. I'm sorry, Alan, I meant to, I didn't mean to cut you off, but I wanna enjoy the martini while listening to the rest of your story. So you're fighting the monkeys for the juniper berries on 80 foot trees in Nairobi.

Alan 14:31

Yeah, just outside of Nairobi in the Rift valley.

Francis 14:34

that's a pretty good story. Um, now there, these are 80 foot trees, and it's fresh juniper.

Alan 14:39

Fresh juniper from the Rift valley, which sits right on the equator. so that means is that we get sun, 80% of the year

Mark 14:44

So, which is one of the reasons these, these trees grow so large. Correct?

Alan 14:48

It's high altitude, great sun on the equator

Guy 14:52

This is the most southern extent of the juniper species. So a fun factor for Juniper nerd is. During the ice age, obviously, when, when the, the ice sheets, uh, regressed Juniper was the thing that re re conquered, uh, recolonized a lot of, of northern Europe. There was just no plant life. But it also went north. Also went south. It went south through Mediterranean. Uh, also through then the Arabian Gulf, it came down and, uh, over, we're talking millions of years, went through Saudi Arabia. Yemen comes across into the Riff Valley on the further south. The Kenyan Highlands and the Tanzanian Mountains because it's high there. So it's cool, but it's on the equator. It wouldn't have got SCO South because it was too hot, but it could do that because it's high and the tree could live. It couldn't get any further. So this is the southern most extent of the Juniper species. But then it also grew

Mark 15:44

very. So I, I, I want to go back to the monkeys just for a second. 'cause we were talking about the monkeys and, uh, so when last we met, we were poolside in New Orleans. And Phil, you had just done a, a podcast with Philip Duff. And one of the great things I heard from that particular podcast was somebody asked you, you know, so do you go where the monkeys go to find the good juniper and you just turned around and you said. No, the monkeys are the enemy. I was like, wow. It's how planted up of the apes are we going? So not a big fan of the monkeys.

Alan 16:21

personally, uh, not really. but in this particular case, they, um, I think we now we've, we've got into a good system, um, with our teams. so we know where the best, uh, Juniper are in the forest. And we pick up across Kenya nowadays.

Francis 16:36

so this stuff is all foraged from the forest. Yes. Well, and I think what, what we wanna point is we have these juniper trees that are 70, 80 feet tall. It's, this is a very specific mm-hmm. A species of juniper that grows that way. Ju usually juniper is a low bush. Am I right about that?

Guy 16:52

Yes, juniper's normally a little, you know, one or two meter bush that grows in the Mediterranean. yeah, hand scavenge. but these trees, they just, they just grew differently as they, as they went through the south and the sun gets hotter. And the earth gets richer. This is the, where the best coffee in the world grows. Yemen, Kenya, Ethiopia, where red coffee's from it's a long soil and, and it just became a, a gigantic tree. Um, that's how it survived. uh, I guess evolutionarily,

Mark 17:20

so you talk about this being an equatorial product. I mean, guy, that's a, that's a thing, right? That, that products around the equator tend to be big, tend to be more Why is, I mean, obviously sunshine is part of it.

Guy 17:31

Yep. Big, big time. And, and also altitude. I don't know if you guys have spent much time at altitude, but when you get through the, uh, the stratosphere and you get high, you get sunburned really easily. And the reason for that is because there's not all the protective layers So the sun's power is much stronger, higher as well. So it's not just that you are hot, you're also high, and. Year round, 365 days of constant, incredible solar radiation. It just changes. It changes fruits, topical fruits, equatorial fruits coffee, flowers, all the, all the things that could be equated. It's just very different. Wish they had high altitude.

Francis 18:07

I think the other thing that I found really interesting, because Juniper is always in traditional European gins. It's a dried small berry. It's basically a commodity. but Alan hearing you talk about how they're harvested, I mean, people climb these 80 foot trees and pick fresh juniper berries. How did you come up with the idea to, to do that? It had not never been done before.

Mark 18:28

Right. The berries at 30 feet weren't good enough. You had to go to 80. That's.

Alan 18:35

Um, it was the, because you were looking for the best of the ingredients. So the same way as a chef, you know, you always talk about, um, the seasonality. Uh, you always looking at, um, the quality of the ingredients that, the freshness of the ingredients. Um, so we are applied the same logic to our gin as well, so we not just, not just any dried juniper that's going into it, is we look for the specific, best quality that we can get. So, for example, last year the harvest was not very good. so with some of the items we're not able to make, we are looking for the very best, which sometimes is high up. The tree sometimes is lower.

Francis 19:12

How do you decide what's the best? How do your pickers as they climb these trees decide, you know, what makes a juniper berry, right? For gin?

Guy 19:21

I mean, it's, it's purely flavor. It's all effect. It's how does it taste? it's, it's simple as that. Is it rich? Is it savory? Is it umami? If it is, it's, it's, it's great. We grade the amount of 10, and that we decide which, which are the best to use and, and which we don't use. Some, we use for our salt. Some we use for bars and cocktails. We, uh, we have different grades on the quality.

Francis 19:46

Well, so that leads me to a question I, I'll, I'll stick with you guy for a second. Where is this gin going? Mostly because we read about it in the mix as Mark mentioned earlier. And it was kind of, and you know, whatever America wants is what you tell 'em they can't have. So Robert wrote this thing and he's like, this is the best gin forever. You're not gonna be able to find it. Which of course made everybody crazy about it. It's brilliant. Um, uh, but so That's one of the reasons that Mark and I were like, ah, this is bullshit. Right? And then we tried the gin and we, and we could see that it's all there. It's all, it's in the glass. It's a true story and, and it's amazing. But when you designed the gin, where did you think the market was? Did you think it was a home market? Or did you think it was for export and where's it turned out to go? Who? Whose clamoring for this gin?

Guy 20:31

Well, that, that's a really good question. I think the whole concept has evolved. Alan and I, we started out in the backyard. The Genesis story, which is normally bullshit. Like, like so many things. It's actually real in our, in our case, and those, we were spinning in the backyard drinking a Bombay sapphire gin and tonic, and Alan looked at the bottle, had all the botanicals on the side, and sort of said, this is absolute bullshit. Why do we make gin in England with African botanicals that they send to us and we drink every weekend in Kenya? Let's make a gin company. Let's about it. And I think that that was sort of the genesis. It was, it was a sort of a, an FU to, people using African staff and, and sending it to us and selling us. I was drinking it every weekend. And um, and then the sort of concept evolved and, we had some constraints. We wanted to make a beautiful African product with African glass, but we could only get 50 bottles a day. So it had to become a high end pre product. Um, and, and, and I guess that Genesis base just took its course. you only make a hundred bottles day to this day? Wow. A hundred,

Mark 21:35

a hundred bottles a day.

Francis 21:36

Were there other African gins before you guys?

Guy 21:40

There were no African gins using African juniper. There was an amazing gin, gin movement in South Africa. Led by a guy called Roger Jorgensen, who rest his soul was our master distiller. Um, he made the first fame boss gin. So in South Africa, they have one of the world's five, floral kingdoms. It's only in the Western cape. Uh, so there was a big gin boom down there, but all of it was using European juni. so yes, there's an African gin movement, but there's, there's never been, which we wanna start. That's, well, we wanna give the African sure to, we think it's better. We wanna help everyone consume it and create a supply chain for people who harvest it.

Mark 22:17

and then you figured out you had the best juniper in the world. And, you know, why are we bringing juniper from other places? I will tell you, we've ruined your gin. Because it was an all African product and we put a California lemon peel in it. I am so sorry. I think we're forgiven.

Francis 22:36

I think we're, You also put it in French for moh. But, but, but here, but here's the question that, can you answer my earlier question? Where's the gin going? Is it mostly for export? Is any of it being drunk in Africa? Well, what's happening? Yeah.

Guy 22:47

Sorry, that was a bit of a, a ramble. it's

Francis 22:49

all a ramble. The whole show is a ramble. Don't, worry about it.

Guy 22:52

I should get another martini. so the biggest market is still Kenya, believe it or not. Um, we are so proud that this month, for the first time ever, we outsold Johnny Walker in the Kenya Duty Free. Wow. People don't keep Johnny Walker. as a challenger brand with a ridiculous price point out to old Johny Walker, no one does that. The Duty free guys are amazed. They wanna take us to every duty free store they have in the world. And they're like, this doesn't happen. No one beats Johnny Walker. So Kenya's our biggest market on-premise tourism, Duty Free um, but the US is obviously enough. Is, is our focus, is each US state has the potential in the long run to or. You know, 10 US states have been true in the long run to be as, as clean just because of the, the Buying Power Act.

Mark 23:35

I, I want to talk a little bit more about you guys and your story and, how you got together and, and made this all happen. But the first thing I need to talk about is Francis had the idea of us having martinis at 1130 this morning before. Before our, before our restaurant shift tonight. And I thought, what a terrible idea. And now I'm thinking, what a spectacular idea this martini is. Spectacular. and I know that love the green dot. This is made out of the blue dot, which is more readily available and now available in New Jersey. By the way, for those of you who are wondering if you could get it in New Jersey, uh, it's. Absolutely amazing. I mean, it is one of the best martinis I have ever had in my life. Period. End of story.

Francis 24:21

Well, and in fairness, he has, someone of the best gin in the world made by the best bartender in New Jersey. So it's like extraordinary. What a what a what a treat for you, mark. That must be, um, I do feel treated. Thank you. So, so you have three levels of gin and I think this is really interesting to talk about. You've got the blue drop, the red dot, and the green dot. Again, we need to touch on the fact that, I just want to reiterate, making gin from a, fresh wet juniper berry is so different from making it from a dried juniper berry. So that's one step, that's an ingredient in all the gins and the, the green dot, which is very rare, not yet legally available in New Jersey. But Mark and I have a bottle that we bought for ourselves. The green.is one botanical all. It's one tree, one botanical, all. Uh, Juniper. That's another new trail. You guys have blazed Alan, you wanna talk about that?

Alan 25:13

Yes, I'd love to. Very. That's my favorite gel.

Francis 25:17

Mine too,

Alan 25:18

and it's my favorite Ginger. Partly because, uh, one's delicious. but also because it's purely Kenya, so I mean the boots dot on the red.as our African gins.

Speaker 5 25:28

Mm-hmm.

Alan 25:29

Um, but for me the green.is, is purely Kenya, um, and it's Terah Deriv, uh, Terah driven and like I said, you look at it from the same way you make wine, you know? So you look for the best fruit, uh, and make the best gin in a similar sort of way. that was the idea of it. what amazed me about it also is that with just using one botanical, you're able to get the balance, the creaminess, the umami, the, just the overall balance of the gym that just makes it so sip, uh, and so supple as well.

Francis 27:27

there are two gins in the world that I think you could drink warm in a sniffer, like a, not devy. I mean, gin is made to be chilled. Gin is made to be, at the very least, made to a martini if you're rushing and having it with caviar, at least made ice, ice cold, and it had done on a shot. I guess your

Mark 27:46

other gin

Francis 27:47

mark's gonna guess the other gin, but one of them is definitely your green dot, which I'm very happy to drink in a sniffer at room temperature. That's beautiful. What's the other, also a color in its name? Yeah. Yeah, it is Blue Gin by Hanauer. Han Hanauer makes it, he's an ODV maker and he makes a gin that you can drink like an o Dvy.

Guy 28:05

down to that great man.

Francis 28:06

Yeah, he's amazing.

Guy 28:08

He's the OG of,

Francis 28:09

yeah. Yeah. He's, he's, he's an old friend of ours, and when we were, we were the first people to carry Zabar ODV in the United States. Did you know that? I, I did know that you were here. Um, and we were, we're also the first people to carry Procera gin in New Jersey, which is pretty amazing.

Mark 28:26

Alright, so we're gonna talk about that pool party that we were all at in New Orleans this summer. Okay. We got there too late and then Francis got there like 20 minutes after me.

Francis 28:35

And you were all wrecked. Okay. I gotta tell you, you were all,

Mark 28:37

all wreck. It was, it was quite the party, but. When we got there, there were a bunch of other friends who were already there, and you guys obviously had been, had, had a day already. It was about six o'clock at night and you guys had already had a day. But, uh, what was fantastic and what I really loved about you was you saw how excited we were about the, the gin and we were having the blue dot and the red dot, and the green dot wasn't available. But all of a sudden a tiny little bottle of Green Dot came out of somewhere. And I don't know where you were hiding it, and I don't want to know where you were hiding it, but it came, it came out and everybody got to try Green Dot. And, and I was so happy that, everybody in the room got to taste it. 'cause our director of operations was there, my wife was there, our producer, and they got to taste this just absolutely incredible, incredible.

Francis 29:27

Spirit. I do think it's the best gin in the world. I

Mark 29:29

think it's the best gin in the world.

Francis 29:30

It's the best in world, best gen I've ever

Mark 29:31

had. Okay. And, and if you listen to the show, I don't say it if I don't mean it. Yeah. It's as simple as that.

Guy 29:37

That means the world to us. That is so kind. And we we're, we're obviously a little bit biased, but we, we agree. We love the category and, we just wanted to help expand it and, and change the conversation. yeah, it's, it's really exciting. You know what I love and can

Mark 29:52

be seen as a sipping category. I love when guy demure, right? Because you just know that that is so antithetical to your, personality is to, is to be like, oh, I'm, To be much, to be the quiet shy one is, is it's just, it's not you,

Francis 30:12

me. That it? Alright, so, alright, so now everybody should try these j You can read about them online. You can go to our website. We'll put in some, uh, some links to them. They're amazing. They're amazing now. Uh, blue.is you say is um, for mostly martinis. red.is a slightly more spicy version that's currently not available. You like that to punch you in regular cocktails and we've discussed what green.is. I encourage people to look at them all, but I wanna talk about you guys. 'cause I mean, the thing about the show is this is restaurant people, you know, and food and beverage people, so. Alan, you came to this, you are an interesting cat. You're a brewer, you're a chef. You studied in the States. Um, talk to us about your background and how you came to be who you are and how you came to this project.

Alan 30:51

Um, yeah. So they, I went to university in the UK where I got my first. first experience in restaurants, um, and then, bars and with alcohol. Um, so I lived next to a Brewer brewery. They for about two years when then I got the idea of having a microbrewery 'cause there were no micro breweries in Kenya. So I went to the us, went to Univers of California. Uh, there's a Master Boys program. I did the course for about a year. A little bit for like six months and then came back to Kenya. So opened, um, our microbiome after a couple years. Then I discovered I was, had a natural talent for cooking. my training was actually engineering and, um, and setting up factories and process engineering. So that's how the, the, the factory and the brewery set up, uh, came into play. naturally had a natural affinity for, um, high-end spirits and beer and food, and it's just grown slowly by, slowly over time. guy and I first met, we, it was at my restaurant. Um, we came for dinner, uh, and we had an argument about one of my sources for my states. Which up to last weekend, he was still insisting I was lying about that sauce. Okay. You've known each other for almost 20 years now. So from there, I learned quite a bit about wines, from Africa. Then, um, we came up with this idea of making the gin. So, so by the time we got to making the gin, I had a couple of restaurants. We were bringing on wines. I had a wine bar, uh, had the microbrewery, and I was more interested in, uh, pioneering. in Kenya. we didn't have dry edge beef, uh, dry steaks. So we have Wagyu across Boran here, those are the first to do that. So yes, so pine in terms of beef, the beer, gin now.

Francis 32:45

What are the, what are the names of your restaurants? That, where, where are we going to go to dinner? When we come to visit you?

Alan 32:51

So we have two, the, the Wine Bar, Sierra Wine and Cafe, and then the Sierra Wine Bar and Grill, which is the bigger one, which is where I'm sitting currently.

Guy 32:59

It's much better at Alan's house with his wine cellar. I gotta be honest. Nice.

Francis 33:03

Well, if we, if we're invited, we'll go. I mean we, you know, we can't just show up on a Tuesday at Alan's house and ring the doorbell. You know,

Mark 33:09

I'm curious, so obviously a lot of our listeners are. familiar with Wagyu beef from Spain or from Spain with Wagyu beef from Japan. Right. So they've, they've had Miyazaki and Kobe and some of the other beef from, from Japan here in the United States. We do have some purebred Wagyu, but generally our Wagyu is, when it's mixed, is mixed with Angus. Yeah. So the, the cattle you're mixing it with in Africa is a, is a traditional African, cattle.

Alan 33:37

It's a Kenyan breed actually. So there are different breeds in Africa, and so there are some from Northern Africa, some from Southern Africa. we have, in Kenya we have the Bora breed, it's, it's sort of like a wild breed. It's, which is actually now in, in places like in the US and Australia. it's wonderful because it, it's able to handle a harsh, um, environment up north and it also has very good beef. but when you cross it with a European breed or a Japanese breed, like what do you, you end up with a product that is fantastic.

Francis 34:07

Excellent. Yeah. Excellent. Well, and I, I'm, I'm assuming you serve a lot of gin in your restaurants. Yeah.

Alan 34:13

Yes, we do.

Francis 34:15

Alright, so, so guy, tell us your story. How, how did you come to, uh, to be here in a partner and, part of this whole project?

Guy 34:22

By just talking a lot. Basically,

Francis 34:24

that's my strategy. It's taken me this far.

Guy 34:27

Yeah. grew up in Australia. Um, some people might be able to hear an Australian accent. Um, moved to Africa, moved to Congo to work in development, work in microfinance. We used small loans to predominantly women entrepreneurs. and loved that, that worked really well. I Got to visit and travel all around Africa. Ended up in, uh, in Kenya. where I met Alan. He used, uh, trough oiled fake mushroom sauce and, um. Our friendship has grown on that lie ever since.

Francis 34:56

I love it. I love it. I love it. Truffle truffle oil is a, is a baseline man. Even we occasionally use truffle oil. I'm sorry to say we also use real truffles, but we use truffle oil and so and so are you still doing development and banking or is junior full-time business now? What are you doing?

Guy 35:13

So August the 13th, 2017. I, Started running Procera full time. uh, it's been a journey, eight years, racing around the world, talking, meeting interesting people. Uh, it's just been a dream. I just pinch myself and weak ourselves every day.

Mark 35:29

you guys alluded earlier, to the fact that, you're struggling with making procera gin this year. That is a bad year for the juniper. So, so what's going on? fill us in with, with, we already have a shortage. How, how bad is it gonna get? Tell us what's going on.

Guy 35:46

It is, it is gonna get bad for and red dot lovers. It's not bad for blue dot lovers. So the shortage or the problem was, uh, last year was an El Nino year, which, which meant we got a lot more rain in Africa, which meant that the juniper berries, the very best ones didn't dry on the trees the way we needed. That doesn't mean that they weren't good. At the very best of the best. Were not brilliant and we will not release an, if it's not better or as good as the year before the 23. The, the green dot your drinking is the best gin we've ever made. At 24, we would've released, wouldn't have been as good as that. And so we didn't release it. We did not make a red dot or a green.in 24. We are just about it. Super exciting. We found, we found two regions that are the best at the moment, and we're gonna decide which is the best of them. Then the whole team will go to that region and we'll use the three best trees for green and red dolf for 25. It'll be late season,

Mark 36:46

So how long does it take from the time you pick the juniper to bring a gin to marketplace? Obviously it's not scotch. We don't need to wait eight years. how long is that process

Guy 36:55

All our gins, we want it to be a minimum of six months. But for red and green, it depends. We're, we're learning as we go. Right. This is why this is exciting, is it's a, it's a volatile, natural product in the same way that agave, when you open the bottle, it changes immediately. Doesn't necessarily oxidize, it loses, its volatile elements. Our gin's the same, so, so we are learning as we go. We don't know. Six months is the absolute minimum, but so this next entity of red and green dot. Where we think it'll probably hopefully get the market just before summer.

Francis 37:31

So I wanna point out something about gins and vodkas and spirits. And one of the reasons that Mark and I are always suspicious of expensive vodka and expensive gin is something just Mark just alluded to. Like if you are making whiskey, if you're making a 12-year-old whiskey, you've bought all the expenses of distilling, you've got the expense of a wooden cask. Or several wooden casks. You've got the expense of the amount of whiskey that you lose through respiration. The angels share over maybe a dozen years. And so when you charge me $80 a bottle for whiskey, I'm like, all right, well that makes sense. If I, if I'm gonna invest something and say, take a chance on this, and you may get a payday in 12 years, you know, there's an expense to that. And one of the reasons we, we are always suspicious of gins and vodkas is because they don't take 12 years, and once you distill it, they're sort of ready. People underestimate how complicated gin is to make. And I spent a number of years judging on the American Distilling Institute, panel, which is all the amateur distillers. And people think you can make gin because you can make it and turn it around quickly. But boy, you need talent to make gin. Most of it tastes like soap if you don't make it really well, which is why all the big commercial gins, which are very tightly controlled there, so well, so it's a tremendous amount of skill that goes into making gin. But you guys. I see why your gins are so expensive. You have people climbing 80 foot trees in the middle of Africa, the

Mark 38:51

life insurance alone.

Francis 38:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and also, and let's realize whenever you have, you have an, you're foraging juniper berries from 80 foot trees in the middle of, the highlands. And, you know, they're going up those trees and, and often being like. Nope, not good enough. Gotta climb another tree. And you know, that, that, that's very intensive. So, you know, I, I have to say, I really feel the cost of this gin, uh, is justified, especially in these beautiful bottles. But the gin itself, um, I, I rarely am willing to spend this much on a gin. And I am for two reasons. One is it's simply the best, and two is there's actually a lot of cost of production that you put into gin that most people don't.

Mark 39:29

I, I'm gonna ask you about one last. Cost of production, the bottles. We have to talk about the bottles and, your philosophy behind the, glass bottles.

Alan 39:39

Um, the, the glass bottles, we what something that is truly unique. So we went to a company that it does, um, artisanal hand-blown bottles and they make beautiful bottles, beautiful glass, um, which are sold within Africa, within Kenya, and we wanted to showcase that as well. So because they are hand-blown handmade. beautiful artisanal craft products. Um, it's, it's not, it's not a cheap easy produce, something that's produced, you know, houses of bottles at a time. So as you're saying, you know, with, same thing with whiskey, is there's a cost associated with, with having the craft and having the care that goes into making each particular bottle. And each bottle is unique. Um, and it's not something that comes out of a factory. the idea for that was we wanted to showcase the, the craft of the glass bottle making, um, within Kenya and Nabi.

Francis 40:29

Well, they're really beautiful and the whole gin project is pretty amazing and something new under the sun. And, uh, I appreciate you guys coming on the show to, to talk to us about your gyms.

Mark 40:37

Yeah, this was great. We're, excited to have your gins in New Jersey.

Guy 40:41

We're super grateful and looking forward to getting to, uh, to know New Jersey a little bit better as well as my, uh, spend time traveling around there. And yeah, thank, thanks for, thanks for the incredible timeboard. Well,

Francis 40:52

It's been great having you. Thanks so much. You can find out more, uh, about these gins on our website where we'll post some notes. We'll be back in just a moment. uh, you can find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.

the-restaurant-guys_2_11-04-2025_123610 41:27

Well, mark, do you know what I have to say after that? What's that? I'd like to make another martini, but it's funny, I have the gin in front of me, which I can drink straight. I'm gonna, I, by the way, you yelled at me when I poured extra gin. You didn't pour the blue dot? You poured the green dot. I know. It's like $300 a bottle. I know. Goodness gracious. I sit for We did a long time my friend. We, it'll be dead a long time. You know, I think I wanna add some historical context to the whole gin thing that we should have probably added while those guys were on the air. Um, you know, one of the things about African gin. You know, there's not a lot distilled in Africa. Mm-hmm. And what's interesting is there's so many interesting fruits and flavors in Africa that. You know, you can't make everything into wine, but you can distill just about everything. Yes. Right. Like you can make, like Hans Rau makes carrot OB. Right. Do that. Carrots. A lot of carrots though. So if this starts a whole highend distillation movement through Africa, which it sounds like a lot of people are getting excited, it sounds like that's what's happening. I mean, just from, from everything I'm reading, from everything I'm seeing, from everybody I'm talking to, it sounds like that is exactly what's happening in Africa. You know, we went to tales this year. There was an African spirits room. Oh yeah. And an African spirits of that. Well, they brought tales to Africa this year. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they did tales of the cocktail in Africa. So it's happening. Well, and the other thing about African fruits, tropical fruits, generally, there's a lot of highly perishable stuff. Mm-hmm. And the other thing about Africa is infrastructure and shipping is very, very difficult in a lot of places in Africa. the African continent doesn't have a lot of inland rivers. And the railroads are limited, right? So there's a lot of stuff that's really awesome there. That's too perishable for the infrastructure. Topographical Francis stripes. Yeah. I am not geographical, but, and topographical. But the thing is, if you think about it. If you can distill those things, that's a way to make a high value, stable product that you can ship. Okay, so ready for historical, Francis. I got my professor Capon today. So the thing about Africa originally was what England did with a lot of her colonies. Irish, uh, a lot. Let's, what, what England did with a lot of her colonies was the whole idea of the exploitation part of Colonialization was. They would go to someplace to, to export its natural resources, but they wanted the industrialization to remain in, in England. Right. And in Scotland. Right. So I think a bunch of our London listeners just turned you off. No, no. They know, they know. Um, one of the reasons Ireland remained as agricultural as it is except for maybe Belfast and, and is because. They discouraged the industrialization of Ireland, and that certainly happened in Africa, and it happened in parts of India, but more so in Africa. So it was actually illegal to distill in Africa, so they weren't able to distill. So they would take the botanicals and the, and they would go back to London where the Indus, where the distillation would happen, and then the gin would be sent around the world, including back to Africa. You know, during prohibition it was illegal to distill here. We had a couple people who still did it. Yeah. Yeah. What does that have to do with that? Well, I'm sure there are some African people who've been distilling all along. Well, you know, the thing is though, culturally there wasn't a tradition of distillation there. So, but, so I guess what I'm saying though is this turns that paradigm on its head and it was, you know, I think there was no cultural demand to distill in Africa either. But the Brits in Africa were sending. There, the botanicals back to England where the manufacturing would happen to be sent down there. I just think it's very cool that somebody's like, Hey, wait a minute. Let's, let's, let's not do that anymore. And anyway, the gin's great and I'll just keep drinking it. That's all I got. Well, you also have all these, these new, you know, they're creating techniques because they're, the resources are right in front of them. Yeah, yeah. It's just Absolutely. Well, it's cool. It's amazing. What, what's cool about it, honestly? Of all of the stuff and we started the show out this way. Mm-hmm. What is really interesting and cool about it is they're making an interesting, super high quality product that the world has never seen before. Well, and you know, that's where it always starts with us. It's right, like your story is interesting. Your grandfather was a prohibition liquor runner. I care a little bit, but I don't really care about any of it unless the product is extraordinary and then I care about how you got there and this product. Uh, we both agree and that's, we both agree. We would've spent the whole show making fun of it if it wasn't great because of the story. A hundred percent. Alright, so we're gonna take a little break now. We're gonna go find something to make fun of on the next show, uh, and you can find out more about us and tune into that show I'm Francis Shop. And I'm Mark Pascal. We are the restaurant guys. You can always find out more about us@restaurantguyspodcast.com.