The bean-shaped island of Menorca is small—just 27 miles/43 km long and between 6 and 12 miles/10 and 20 km wide—and strikingly rural. Mahón (called Maó in Menorquí, the distinct Catalan dialect spoken here), the island’s largest city, has a population of just 30,000 (out of an island total of 90,000). It sits at the head of a lengthy, finger-thin inlet dotted with tiny islands and sheltered by hills. Some claim it is the finest port in the entire Mediterranean. The English surely thought so.
Britain gained control of Menorca in 1708 during the War of Spanish Succession, and then negotiated to keep it through the Treaty of Utrecht after the war ended. They moved the island’s capital from ancient Ciutadella to Mahón, and used it as their main Mediterranean seaport for most of the eighteenth century. Their clearest fingerprints today are seen in the Georgian-style architecture, with its obvious references to the classicism of Palladio, and distinctive ruddy red walls that deepen in late summer afternoons to almost scarlet.
Their tastiest legacy, though, is ginebra, a locally made gin that is aromatic, woodsy, and distinctly herbal. Menorcans began distilling gin to supply the British flotilla, and kept on doing so after the flotilla pulled out two hundred years later. Made with wine alcohol (most gins are distilled from grain or malt) and flavored with juniper berries (from the Pyrenees mountains) and wild aromatic herbs local to the island, gin remains an important part of Menorca’s gastronomic DNA.
The main manufacturer today is the Pons family, which has been bottling and selling gin under the Xoriguer label for the last century. The factory is located at the end of the city’s magnificent port, just across from where ferries from Barcelona, Valencia, and Palma de Mallorca arrive. Still made in wood-fired stills and stored in vast oak barrels, the gin is bottled in distinctive green glass bottles. The label carries an image of the family’s eighteenth-century windmill, which gives its name to the brand.
Locals drink gin de Menorca with a slice of lemon—then it’s called a pellofa—or with lemon juice and lemon soda. This is the festive pomada (see page 315), a key ingredient to any Menorcan fiesta.