Etsu The Original Gin

Written By Campbell Mattinson

I didn’t enjoy this gin. You can only call it as you taste it. But there’s more to the story. Let me explain.

I’ve written about wine for the past 25 years. I have a lot of experience of cork taint. So much experience that I can spot it from a fair distance. Cork taint doesn’t have to involve actual cork, confusingly enough. Often, when I’m walking down the street, I smell something and think: that wood pile is corked. Or those carrots are corked. Or that tap water is corked. You get the idea. Cork taint is abbreviated to the letters TCA. It stands for 2,4,6-trichloroanisole. What I’m smelling in these instances is not tainted cork, but TCA.

This Yuzu The Original Gin is not sealed with a cork; it has a plastic stopper. But as soon as I opened it I smelled something that was either TCA, or a chemical compound close to it. I put it into a G&T and that chemical-like flavour was still obvious.

I’ve now tasted from this same bottle three or four times across three or four weeks, and every time I get the same chemical-like hit.

For the record, I’m fond of Etsu’s Yuzu Gin.

Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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Four Pillars Rare Dry Gin