It was not a laboratory, rather a rudimentary homemade still that his Spanish grandfather had in his house.
But this Basque didn't just produce his own gin there.
Furthermore, between essences of herbs and roots and the effluvia that emanated from their distillates, he intensely incited the curiosity of his grandson Pablo, 8 years old, who would later reply, already immersed in a world of experimentation, first as a hobby, for pleasure, and with the same enthusiasm,
the art of creating spirits
.
He did this for the last two decades, also in his home, in
an elementary still
that today is perfectly visible in a privileged place in the Kalmar house.
It is that the results of the production of Pablo Apodaca's distillates, the fruit of the learning that he literally absorbed in his childhood, now prosecuted as a dynamic company, ended up configuring in Mar del Plata
an industry with unusual power: that of gin
.
Kalmar,
the first licensed distillery in Mar del Plata
, was founded by Apodaca and his wife, Débora Sabsai, and they no longer only produce their own multi-award-winning label.
As in the heyday of the knitting industry ("Mar del Plata National Capital of Pullovers"), now the gin industry gave rise to the "fasón" modality: in the stills of Kalmar today
recipes are made for 34 brands
, many very well known.
The ordinance that approved the installation of distilleries here was modeled after their undertaking, and
was enacted in April 2021
.
But the kick with the distillates came from another firm, which had settled outside the limits of General Pueyrredón because here, curiously,
stills were prohibited
.
It was Restinga
.
Matías Iriarte, who is a descendant of Adolfo Primavesi, the Italian who studied floriculture in Paris and landscaped emblematic sites in the city - a park on the edge of the Los Troncos neighborhood is named after him -,
paradoxically, he had to put his distillery in Coronel Vidal
.
He did it with partner Franco Regalini in 2018.
Pablo Apodaca, one of the founders of Kalmar: they already produce gin for 34 brands.
Photo Gabriel Bulacio
They settled on Route 2, 60 kilometers from these beaches, and although it was in another district,
the one they created is considered the first Mar del Plata gin
.
London Dry style, they were inspired by the Atlantic Ocean, hence their name: the sandbank is that rocky prominence that the Tandilia system reveals on the surface of the sea, between the waves in the south of the city, about 500 meters from the coast.
His beginning was like most, based on trial and error in a small still acquired after a trip to London.
"I brought a kit to make homemade gin, we started studying, at that time -2015- there were already people who were making it and we started," says Iriarte.
Gin and tonic with Restinga gin, which although it was created in Coronel Vidal, is considered the first from Mar del Plata.
Photo Gabriel Bulacio
Guillermo Montenegro, the mayor of Mar del Plata, found out the reason why Restinga was in Vidal, he investigated and found an old ordinance that included prohibitions: "It was like motorcycle racing on the beach, they were prohibited
and no one I knew why
," he tells
Clarín
.
"I had to listen to them," Montenegro recalled. "They stressed to me the importance of understanding it as an industry. It is a very thriving sector in which there are young people with good minds, and they provide work. Imagine that one of the firms, in the Industrial Park, makes Branca gin".
Last year, Kalmar opened a distillery there with the capacity to
produce more than one million liters annually
.
The Restinga plant in Coronel Vidal.
They had to settle 60 kilometers away because gin could not be produced in Mar del Plata.
Photo Gabriel Bulacio
Since the sanction of the ordinance,
there are 19 labels in the city
, each one with its own imprint, and many awarded.
There are gintonerías - one from Tato Giovannoni -, gin and tonic ice cream at Augustus, draft gin, in cans and boxes, factory bars and
"the first distillery bar in the country"
, from Casa Rosa, which will soon be seen beyond the Olavarría street from his home in Mar del Plata based on a careful franchise regime that he has just launched and that already shows interest from all over the country.
Casa Rosa also began distilling before the ordinance, which is why
it is in Santa Clara del
Mar.
Today there are about a thousand gin labels in the country, and Casa Rosa's was number 13. Máximo Cantarella understands that after the tour of the beers "that we come to join, there is an audience open to new experiences."
His cocktails are developed from his own distillates.
"We do not think about making a gin, but about going further. Our vision is to become the benchmark Argentine distillery, so we work with raw materials that come from different regions of the country, we have Patagonian hops, chili peppers from the Calchaquí Valleys, Mendoza raisins, pumpkins from Corrientes:
I can tell the story of each producer
," he says.
Casa Rosa produces gin and also has the first distillery bar in the country.
Photo Gabriel Bulacio
It refers to the commitment that he and his partners Bernardo Arce, Gonzalo Travesino and José Churruarín assumed: "Give life to a company that generates economic, social and environmental impact, to something great that gives us pride."
Cantarella analyzed the trends of spirits in England a decade ago, and knew that these would be the days of the gin boom.
The same thing happened to Luciano Bourdette and his friends Martín Arana, José Salaberry and Gerardo Sarries, partners in
Mar del Plata Gin
.
They traveled to Europe on a rugby veterans tour before the pandemic, and when they went to a bar in Bilbao, Spain, they ordered gin and the bartender, pointing to a bar full of labels, asked: "Which one?"
"I was stunned. At that time,
traditional labels
, imported ones, and some others were known here."
In January 2020 he bought a 20-liter still that he did not know how to use.
Preparation of a gin and tonic at Casa Rosa.
This cocktail fueled the craze for the spirit.
Photo Gabriel Bulacio
Bourdette understands that
the culture of craftsmanship is rooted in the Mar del Plata idiosyncrasy
(that's what they called their first gin), and he bases his idea on what happened here with the fishing and textile industries, with alfajores and beer, and now with distillates.
Ariel Segovia, creator of Mandingus
, a contemporary gin
, took the same route after seeing the momentum that micro distilleries had in Europe .
Same as the creators of
Malaria Gin
, which draws attention from its presentation of an intense blue color that changes color to pink when combined with tonic.
Pablo Rugolo, from
Oíd Mortales
, says that they (along with Leandro Pizzolo and former partner Juan Antón), started "for the love of gin" in a 15-liter still with the concept of
creating a federal gin
, through the use of botanicals. harvested in the country: that's where the name comes from.
"We are part of a
generation of national distillates
that came to banish this idea that national is bad, and today there are honestly good quality products," explained one of the creators of Oíd Mortales.
For Apodaca, from Kalmar Gin, what became fashionable was the gin and tonic, the drink, and that happened in the days of confinement during the pandemic.
By then,
he had been distilling in his home for 20 years
and, owners of a door-to-door passenger transport company, together with his wife, it was the way out that they found from that total standstill.
They partnered with Néstor and Sofía Díaz, who handle the commercial leg of the business.
"There is passion, there is love and there is the enthusiasm that an entrepreneur must have," says Apodaca, master distiller and specialist in standardization of recipes, not just gin: in the pipeline he has
the making of the first whiskey with a designation of origin
.
He assures that just as once in brewery bars pints were ordered by color (blonde, red, black), and today the choice is between IPA, APA, Barley or Porter, among many other specialties,
the dynamic boom of gin will soon It will also conceive savvy consumers
.
Meanwhile, as the guys at Mar del Plata Gin say, paraphrasing Luca Prodan, the city's spirits industry brings flavors to the entire country: "We are 'exploding from the ocean'."
Mar del Plata. Correspondent
ACE