A Tarragon Soy Sauce & Salt from the Monastery Garden

Behind the walls of Sint-Catharinadal, the oldest women's monastery in the Netherlands, lies a garden that has been tended for centuries. Beds of vegetables, fruit, flowers, and in one corner the herb garden. It is a unique place. It is also where this bottle began.

Torben, chef at restaurant 1397 in Bergen op Zoom, was the first to take Thomas and Piet there, seven years ago. We met the sisters, walked the grounds, and slowly a friendship grew. Especially with Liesbeth, who looks after the garden with a care you can feel. Together with a large group of volunteers working alongside her, week after week, weeding, pruning, harvesting. That shared effort is as much a part of the garden as the soil is.

Tarragon is a strange and wonderful herb. Sweet and green at first, then that anise lift, somewhere between licorice and fennel. We wanted to know what it would do with our soy sauce.

Years ago, we made a test batch, and that jar is still in our brewery today. It became the one we kept reaching for. Opened it, smelled it, tasted it and put it back. Time and time again. At some point you must admit that something is worth sharing.

Last year, we put the monastery in the spotlight with a special edition, aged in a former Champagne barrel, with a label based on a painting by one of the sisters. That release was about the place and the people. This one is about the garden itself.

Tarragon is at it's best in summer, so that is when we picked it. From there, the sauce spent some time in the barrel. Fresh herbs carry their brightness at the beginning, and the trick is knowing when to stop rather than how long to wait. Give tarragon too much time and it turns flat, and you lose exactly what makes it worth using.

Behind it is our original soy sauce made the way we always make it, patient and slow. On top of it sits an herb picked at the right week in summer, from a garden that has been tended for centuries by many hands.

And if you know us a little, you know nothing goes to waste. When we strained the sauce, the tarragon leaves were still there, soaked through with our soy sauce. So, we dried and ground them with our salt. A Soy Tarragon Salt.

Two products from one harvest, both from the same corner of the garden. And the circle closes where it started. Torben, who opened that door seven years ago, developed recipes with this soy sauce. You can find them on our recipes page.

Seven years from a first visit to a bottle. That feels about right. Limited edition. Grown at Sint-Catharinadal, brewed in Rotterdam.