Two of the thirteen botanicals in this Tuscan recipe are dye plants rather than flavourings. Rubia is madder, the root that produced Renaissance red, and indigo the source of the blue beside it, and GinArte builds its list around the pigments a painter of the period would have ground rather than around anything a distiller would normally reach for. Bottled at 43.5%.

The conceit would be an empty one if the plants tasted of nothing, and they do not. Madder root brings an earthy, faintly bitter depth of the kind roots generally give, and indigo adds a dry green note that leans herbal rather than sweet. Around them the recipe turns conventional in the best sense: juniper firm at the centre, coriander warm, angelica root anchoring the base, cassia bark contributing a cinnamon-adjacent spice that is drier than cinnamon itself. Then come the flowers, and they lift everything above the roots: lavender cool and aromatic, rose petals softly perfumed, chamomile gentle and faintly apple-like. Calamint pulls a sharp minty thread across the centre, and the other aromatic herbs close the gaps. Citrus and a hint of oak appear in a finish longer than the bottling strength by itself would account for.

Thirteen botanicals carrying this much floral material need a mixer willing to disappear. Reach for an unflavoured tonic with a firm bead, load the glass with ice, and tilt the proportions toward the spirit so the flowers survive. Lemon zest matches the citrus in the finish; a lavender sprig thickens the floral side for whoever wants more of it. Organising a recipe around pigments could easily have been decoration; it proves to be structure. Nothing on the list is there by accident. It closes floral, earthy and long.