No 100 Sicilian Cedro

Along with the grapefruit and the tangerine, the cedro is one of the three original citrus fruits from which all other species of the genus Citrus have emerged through crossbreeding. She probably has in the 4th century BC. In the wake of Alexander the Great's campaigns, they made their way from areas further east to the Middle East. Jewish migrants then brought them to Sicily, among other places. Their fruits grow up to the size of a handball and look quite unusual with their knobbly surface. They give little juice due to a very powerful albedo. In Italian cuisine, cedro is often served as a starter as a wafer-thin carpaccio, e.g. with olive oil, pecorino and walnuts. The fruit has ritual significance in both Judaism as etrog, and in Buddhism, where the fingered variety of cedro called "Bhudda's hand" is placed in altar offerings. We were fascinated by the idea of being the first to distill a spirit from this historic and original fruit. So we were very happy to get a small batch of Cedri from our supplier, still with some foliage and the long, woody thorns of the plants. This has resulted in an absolute rarity that impresses with particularly refreshing citrus notes. These notes are comparable to those of cedar, which is why the pine tree is called "cedro" in Italian, just like the citrus fruit. The name derives from the Greek kedrómêlon, "cedar apple". In German, the fruit is also called citron because of its use as the basis of citron, which we find in Christmas stollen, for example.