Three of the four years this spirit spent in wood were served inside barrels that had previously held a quadrupel from Koppige Kater in Delft. Beek Spirits ages it for a year first, then moves it into the beer casks, and the result at 41.8% owes as much to Belgian-style brewing as it does to distilling. A year of plain wood beforehand is what stops the hops from landing on bare spirit.

Quadrupel is a dark, strong, heavily malted beer, and what it leaves behind in a barrel is not the vanilla and coconut of a fresh oak cask alone. The aroma opens on grain and vanilla with tropical fruit behind it, and there is a spicy bitterness running through that comes from the hops the beer left in the wood. On the palate that bitterness is the organising element: it holds together notes of coconut, ripe fruit and a waxy texture that would otherwise pull apart. Juniper is present but it is no longer the loudest thing in the glass, which is what four years does to any recipe. The body is warm and genuinely creamy, and the finish alternates between wood, grain and fruit rather than settling on one, which is the mark of a cask that had a previous life worth inheriting.

Nothing about this belongs in a tall glass. Pour it neat over one large cube and give it a few minutes, since the wax and the hops need a little dilution to separate. If you must mix, a Negroni is the build that survives, the barrel meeting the vermouth without either being lost. Skip tonic entirely: carbonation and four years of wood do not agree. Beer casks are a fashionable idea and rarely this well-earned. Most aged gins are trying to become whisky; this one is trying to become beer, and it very nearly arrives. It ends bitter-sweet, woody and warm.