A guide from the Canning's distillery, Madeira
Portuguese gin.
Portuguese gin is gin distilled in Portugal - on the mainland, in the Azores, and on Madeira. The category is young: most of its distilleries appeared after 2014, and many build their recipes on botanicals that grow nowhere else.
We make one of these gins, on Madeira. What follows is the map as we see it - regions and styles rather than name-checks.
What is Portuguese gin?
The label means more than an address. Portugal's distillers lean on the country's own plants: herbs and fruit from the Alentejo, grape varieties from the Bairrada wine country, subtropical fruit from the islands. The result is a category that tastes of place rather than of one house style.
There is no legal definition - what unites these gins is that they are distilled in Portugal, mostly in small batches, mostly by producers younger than the drinkers they serve.
The mainland, by region
The Alentejo is where the first wave broke, around 2014. It gave the category its best-known party trick - a blue gin, coloured with butterfly-pea flower, that turns pink when the tonic goes in - and some of the first organic gins of the Iberian Peninsula.
In the Bairrada, wine country thinks its way into gin: one organic distillate counts a local wine grape among its botanicals.
On the shelves, the biggest sellers are fruit-led ranges that map their flavours to the country's regions. And the idea travels: there is a Portuguese-styled gin distilled in Hamburg, its botanicals shipped north from the Costa Vicentina.
The islands
The Azores distil gin in São Miguel, and Azorean botanicals find their way into mainland stills as well.
Madeira makes gin too - ours is made in Ribeira Brava, on the island's south coast, and it is the reason this page exists.
Canning's: the gin of the Laurissilva
Canning's is a dry gin distilled in small batches in Ribeira Brava by C.N.A. Companhia Nova de Aguardente, first bottled in 2016. The botanicals come from the Laurissilva - the laurel forest that has covered Madeira for millions of years, a UNESCO World Heritage Site - alongside passion fruit and pitanga, with water from the island's mountains. Bottled at 40%.
Blind-tasted at the IWSC in 2018, it took a Gold Medal and was named among the 21 best gins in the world; in 2023 it took Silver at the International Spirits Challenge. Both are on the awards page, and what makes it a Madeira gin has a page of its own.
In the glass, it holds a gin and tonic the way the island pours it - one part gin to three of tonic, lime zest, a sprig of mint - and it is clean enough for a Martini. The cocktail recipes lean on the island fruit rather than covering it up.
Where to start
It depends on what you are after. The Alentejo's colour-changing bottle is the theatre. The organic gins reward slower drinking. The fruit-led ranges cover most tastes. And for a dry gin that tastes of Madeira - juniper first, island fruit behind it - ours is the one we can vouch for.