Mountain Giant Featuring Flavors of 16 Medicinal Herbs – First Hand-Made Gin from Southeast Serbia

Bravely and with the desire to offer alcoholic beverages with fully natural ingredients, in small exclusive series, the Randjelovic Distillery started working in 2020, the year marked by the coronavirus pandemic. As Ilija Randjelovic says for eKapija, this situation made it more difficult for them to realize most of their plans, but the situation has been improving in the past months, so they are negotiating with large foreign companies.

– The long family tradition of making fruit brandy motivated us to start making various alcoholic beverages ourselves. We started with various styles of craft beers, through whiskey, herbal brandies, all the way to gin. To us, the production of alcoholic drinks is a very creative and interesting hobby, then, and a serious business now – Randjelovic says.

At the agricultural property in the village of Aleksinacki Bujmir, near Aleksinac, they have established orchards and started producing medicinal herbs. The production of beverages is done by hand.

Mountain Giant – Gin made from 16 medicinal herbs

The distillery’s first product is the Mountain Giant gin – the first gin made in Southeast Serbia, through the distillation of 16 medicinal herbs.

– We wanted to make something different, something that’s not typical of our areas. Having visited some European countries, we learned how many types of gins there were actually, how popular the drink was and to what extent it allowed for experimentation. Considering that we were spending a lot of time in nature and that we knew a lot about medicinal herbs, we decided to try our hand at this. In order to arrive at the unique formula of today’s Mountain Giant gin, it took a lot of work, ideas and experimentation. Each plant has something special in it and must fit into the composition as a piece of the puzzle. Gin is known to be based on juniper, but all the other plants need to be complementary in order for an ideal balance of flavors to be achieved. We picked 16 of them, with each plant supporting the other ones. If you take out only one, the unique flavor of Mountain Giant gin is entirely upset – our interviewee explains.

They pick most of the plants themselves, on the mountains and meadows of south and east Serbia. That way, Randjelovic says, they can be sure that they’re bringing in intact nature into their gin, which is what sets them apart.



– Winter savory, rosehip, spearmint, sage, wild thyme, rosemary and some other plants, which we’re keeping a secret, are hand-picked by ourselves. The word “handcrafted”, which you can see on our label, shows that the entire procedure of the production of our gin is hand-made, from the picking of the plants, the drying, the packing and the filling, the closing of the bottles, the application of the labels and all other works. Each plant and each bottle go through out hands – notes Ilija Randjelovic.

New kinds of gin and liqueur to be presented to the market

Everyone who is curious to see what this is about can call in advance and visit the distillery. There, they can taste and buy the gin. The beverage can also be ordered through social networks and the distillery’s website.

– The gin can be bought at the Rakija Market store in Belgrade and can also be tasted at the Srpska Kafana restaurant in Aleksinac. Our plans are more export-oriented, but we will soon increase the number of outlets where you can find the Mountain Giant gin – Randjelovic reveals.

The plan is to present several new types of gin and liqueur by the end of the year. The Randjelovic family also plans to expand the production capacities, as well as the export of the Mountain Giant gin.

– We also plan to start producing fruit brandies, in addition to gin, although those who drink fruit brandy are slowly switching to gin, considering all the medicinal herbs that go into it. In the autumn, we plan to develop and cultivate our orchard and start growing our own medicinal herbs. The aim is to make alcoholic drinks from ingredients whose quality we can guarantee – eKapija’s interviewee concludes.

Aleksandra Kekic

Ilija Ranđelović PR Destilerija RANĐELOVIĆ Aleksinac

Ranđelović Distillery

Ilija Ranđelović

Aleksinački Bujmir

gin

fruit brandy

growing medicinal herbs

Mountain Giant gin

juniper

winter savory

rosehip

spearmint

sage

wild thyme

rosemary

Rakija market

Srpska kafana