Five botanicals, and every one of them is a classic: juniper, coriander seed, angelica root, cassia bark and orange peel. That is the skeleton of the London Dry style with nothing added to distract from it, and a Dutch house choosing to make the English style this plainly is a more deliberate act than it first appears. Bols bottles Silver Top at 40%.

A short list leaves nowhere to hide, which is the whole argument for one. Juniper opens clean and green and stays the loudest voice from start to finish, since no fruit or flower is bidding for the space. Coriander seed sits immediately behind it, warm and gently citric, and the two together account for most of what you smell. Angelica root works from underneath, dry and earthy, binding the others and giving the finish its length; it is the botanical nobody notices and the one that would be missed first. Cassia bark adds a spiced warmth deeper still, drier than cinnamon and less sweet. Orange peel lifts the top with a rounded zest rather than a sharp one. The result is crisp and properly dry, spice and citrus arranged behind the juniper exactly where the style says they belong.

A gin this classical is a mixing gin above all. It makes a clean Martini, a proper Negroni and a straightforward gin and tonic, and it does not fight any of them. Unflavoured tonic, a glass loaded with ice, and orange peel to garnish, since that repeats something already inside the recipe. Nothing here needs a flavoured mixer, and using one would waste the point. Restraint is the harder discipline. A distillery of this age could easily have made something more elaborate and chose not to. Five is the number a recipe reaches when nothing further is needed. It closes dry, citric and clean.