In Argentina they have a saying: “No hay mal que por bien no venga,” probably best translated as “Every cloud has a silver lining.” I say this because the ideas of producing these two new drinks have been festering since before the Covid 19, but they were brought to life during the lockdowns, and it is only recently that these two excellent products have finally hit the markets. Two entrepreneurs, have, each in their own way, struggled through the difficulties to develop these products:
Aníbal Torres’ Torre London Ltd. brought out his ‘London Mate Dry Gin’ and Anthony Coupland finally perfected his ‘Yerba Spirit’ , both equally alluring.
Aníbal Torres in his London Distillery
ANÍBAL TORRES was born in Córdoba, Argentina and has lived in the UK since 1987. He has been working in the catering and hospitality industries where he gained a wealth of experience and knowledge. For 16 years, he ran ‘STUDIO 6’, ON Gabriel’s Wharf (by the OXO Tower and the London TV Centre), taking it from a mismanaged place, riddled with losses, to a highly successful restaurant. With consummate skill and leadership, he changed the staff, menus and improved the drinks list.
When his much-loved ‘Studio 6’ boss (an American Rabbi) suddenly died just as the Covid 19 pandemic hit, Torres decided to quit his job and use the lockdown time to focus on his dream. Having learnt about creating craft beers as a hobby, he had learnt many of the skills he needed. For some time, he produced a number of interesting ales, from a chilli brew to pale ales and even some mead (a honey-based brew), which were all very popular, so much so, that he appeared in a number of magazine articles (River Magazine was one.) Given the huge number of Dry Gins on the market this has been a hard journey, but nothing deterred the determination of a perfectionist like Torres.
TORRES: - “I bought a two-litre distiller and continued experimenting [and playing] with my hobby in my kitchen. I would give some out to customers at the pub to taste and then it occurred to me I could develop a gin from mate tea [Yerba mate]. Suddenly I realized people liked it- I would give it away as a gift. [I knew about] various blind test awards, so I decided to send some samples and I won the GOLD Global award! I was amazed! (Winner of the Spirits Business Global Gin Masters 2023).
I had some savings so I wondered whether I should just keep it in the bank. [As lately] I have worried about this government and their changes, I even have wondered whether to go on or not, because they are so anti- business… In Spain for instance, you pay nothing in duty, you only pay 1 Euro the litre, here you have to pay £9.18 [for every 70ml at 40% that you produce].”
Drinking maté is more than just a drink. It is like a ceremony; you partake and share and pass the gourd around- probably most unhygienic in these days of Health & Safety, but it is delightful in terms of sharing time with friends and even the community- not far from a peace pipe!
Yerba maté (Ilex paraguariensis) is a type of holly native to South America. It has a slightly bitter taste that is particularly suitable to combine with alcohol as it does not get clammy. However, it is by no means the only ingredient that is important to gin. Using his impressive Arnold Holstein copper distiller, which he baptised ‘ROSA’, after his mother (who sadly, died two years ago), Torres developed his winning recipe.
TORRES: - The main ingredient is juniper berries, because, if it is called ‘London dry’ you must have juniper berries. Without the juniper, you are producing a liqueur. I call mine ‘London Mate Dry Gin’, so I mix in a fair level of yerba mate which you can taste. Then I can add all kind of dried botanical ingredients, carefully sourced from reputable companies. As I am registered with SALSA, I am unable to use fresh ingredients as they could be contaminated. For instance, if you want a ‘spicy’ gin, first of all you add the juniper berries, then you can add, for example, coriander seeds, angelica, or orris root, which ‘fixes’ the flavour, then you can have other ingredients like citrus and so on. My recipe for instance, has 10 ‘secret’ botanicals. All the ingredients have to be measured according to the volume of your apparatus
I add the yerba mate as one of the botanicals. You put it into the machine where it boils. The alcohol evaporates, and that is what you collect in the condenser, where it cools and the product that comes out, is your gin. Most of the ‘head,’ has to be rejected. I always remove most of it. But, as that is where the perfume or aroma lies, you have to be careful to be as accurate as possible so as not to lose the citrus. Citrus are the top note, the middle notes are the botanicals and the base notes are ingredients like cloves & cinnamon. As it emerges, you have to keep tasting it, because at a certain point, you have the tail end that has to be discarded as it has no more alcohol, just watery dregs. The only part you can use is the heart, or middle section.”
Though when he started, he even used flowers from his own garden, now Torres takes great care to source his ingredients from reputable companies.
TORRES: - “What I produce is really smooth when you drink it, almost like a Tequila. If a spirit has colour, you know that they distilled it and added synthetic colours afterwards, these can trigger allergies and so on. So, my product is a finely distilled product. When you see the label ‘London Dry Gin,’ it means that it has to be distilled with nothing added.”
And smooth it is, for his product has been recognized with a large number of awards, including the 2025 Gin Masters, The Global Gin Masters and the 2024 Gin Guide award to name a few.
ANTHONY COUPLAND, who created ‘Yerba Spirit’ come, on the other hand, from a different background. Having studied Chemical Engineering, he has a profound interest in how things combine, in particular, drinks. He has not had the experience of Torres in the drinks industry, being a Management consultant in his day job at Deloitte's, yet, for years, he has stubbornly hung onto his dream: -
COUPLAND: - “I have wanted to have a distillery for a long time. My background is in chemical engineering and I always had a fascination with that kind of industry. I love the drinks industry but had never worked in it before. About ten years ago or so, I wanted to create a gin. Fast forward to today, I realized that there are thousands and thousands of gins around, so it's very difficult to get into. Then, in 2017, I came across maté tea in Argentina, as you would expect! I was climbing Aconcagua [the highest peak in the South American Andes] with a few friends. [It turns out that] mate is big in the climbing community in Argentina and in Chile. My brother lived in Santiago… and one of my climbing friends is a Chilean huaso, (the Chilean equivalent of a gaucho in Argentina) and he introduced me to Mate and, it’s fair to say, I really loved it and have been hooked ever since. I still drink it every day here in the UK.
So, I wondered what I could do with maté in alcohol, and for it to be fully focused on maté [as an ingredient]. There are a couple of examples like Annabel’s and there is also one from Mendoza [Argentina] which were the two gins that I found that had maté in them. I believe there may also be a liqueur that has it as well, but I really wanted to try something as I think the flavour of maté is so unique, it would work really well in a spirit. Also, other that in a gin, it had not really been done before.
I bought a small 5-litre copper still and I played around with it, to see if it was possible and it was! Even at my very amateur level, just playing around with a few recipes and methods, I got something that works. [Then] last summer I managed to find a little time and realized that if I did not move forward with the idea, I would regret it forever. “Our slogan on the bottle reads: “El Espíritu del Guacho,”(The Spirit of the Gaucho). This spirit has been described as having: - “On the palate, a bold bitterness emerges alongside vibrant citrus and orange peel, underpinned by a lively Yerba maté character.”
There are many brands of maté tea. Some máte drinkers make the tea just with the leaves, while some brands includes pieces of the stem or ‘palo’, which adds a slight edge to the flavour.
COUPLAND: - “The one I use day-to-day is not the one I use for the spirit. I tend to use the ‘Rosamonte’ brand with palo [at home], but, for the spirit, we only use the leaves. I have chosen a stronger maté, closer to the ‘Canaria’ brand taste [from Uruguay]. I prefer it as it's stronger and more distinct.”
As opposed to Torres who has invested huge sums of money to found his own distillery. For Coupland, this is still something to be achieved in the future. Meanwhile he has been able to find a distillery to do it for him.
COUPLAND: - “At the moment, I work with the Henley Distillery, a small craft distillery west of London, which happens to be close to where I am from originally. It is incredibly helpful for people like me that these craft distilleries consider what we call ‘contract distilling’. They do it to cover their spare capacity and they will work with someone like me who wants to start up their own brand. For instance, people, like the Anglo- Argentine Society might sometime want to create a product for a special event.”
When it comes to placing the drinks on the market, both of these entrepreneurs have had an uphill struggle. Torres, for instance has been extremely pro-active setting up tasting stands at wholesalers like Costco However, he has found that most wholesalers squeeze the producer to such an extent, price- wise, that the profit margins almost vanish. So, both Torres and Coupland are working to find bespoke outlets that are in tune with their product. Finely-crafted drinks at this level, for instance, are not suitable to be sold in corner shops.
Costco tasting stand
COUPLAND: - “It is a tough industry to break into so it's very important where you try to place it. For example, I would like to get it into the smaller family-run Argentine restaurants across London and across the UK, because, for me, that's exactly how I see the brand that I want to create. I love the culture around maté, the history and the ceremony around it. The way in which it brings people together and gets passed around, and I would like to bring that through into the brand. That is why the family-run places embody that spirit. I’ve started to get the product into a few places around London and for me, as long as I can keep a bit of momentum behind it and add the odd bar or two every month, and keep building, [I believe] it will slowly grow and get out there.
The main challenge is that it is a completely new product so, while on the Argentine side, it lends itself quite naturally, because people understand it, I am trying to go round the cocktail bars where it's a new flavour for them. It's unlike any spirit they might have tried before. I find they are really interested and definitely more creative than I am, in terms of developing drinks, so it is a fun spirit for people to play around with, and it is not often that a [mixologist] has a completely new product with which to create something completely unique.”
Anthony Coupland is now working to introduce 'Yerba Spirit' into the world of POLO. He has started to work with the Ham Polo Club in Richmond, which is a good place to start, as the sport is so intimately linked with Argentina.
In the case of Torres, he is hoping to find wholesalers who are more upmarket. He has maintained his tasting stands, as they help increase exposure, and with his extensive customer experience, he uses it to talk about the history and the product: -
TORRES: - “I enjoy describing the history of the product and yerba mate and how it is a totally new product in England. People love it. I have even been approached by foreigners and asked to autograph their bottles!”
Like Torres, Coupland has also found that people seem to be drinking less, but have been getting more particular about the quality of the drinks they choose.
COUPLAND: - “People are veering towards nicer better products avoiding plonk. If you want to drink less of a product of better quality, then, with that in mind, my product works pretty well. Thanks to the process we use to make it, it maintains all the health benefits that you can get from mate in the alcohol as well, you have all the vitamins and minerals & the anti-oxidants. It even remains slightly caffeinated, although you would have to drink an awful lot of it to make any difference. It’s probably the healthiest spirit you could drink with all the maté goodness in it.”
YERBA SPIRIT retails online at £42.00 and can be obtained from www.yerbaspirit.com
LONDON MATE DRY GIN retails online at £39.50 at Torre London Ltd/ www.torredistillery.com
