Oloroso casks come from a wine that has been oxidised deliberately for years, and what they leave behind bears no relation to the vanilla and coconut of new oak. Det Norske Brenneri puts this gin into them for more than twelve months, and the result is golden, considerably rounder than the spirit that went in, and closer to a fortified wine in its aromatics than to anything the category usually offers. Bottled at 41.7%.

Oloroso gives dried fruit above all, and it arrives as raisin and dried fig rather than as anything fresh. Oak follows with a dry tannic grip, and vanilla appears behind both, softer than a bourbon cask would deliver. Underneath the wood, the botanicals hold their positions better than a year in barrel would suggest. Juniper from Røros keeps a clear resinous line. Blueberry from Nordmarka supplies a tart fruit that meets the sherry fruit from the other direction, one fresh and one dried. Rhubarb adds green sourness and bladderwrack seaweed a faint saline weight, both from Grimstad. Angelica from Oppdal anchors the base with dry earth, and wild marjoram from Sunndal lays a savoury herbal line through the centre, which stops the whole becoming a dessert.

A gin this rounded is a sipping bottle before it is a mixing one. The producer suggests a tulip glass and neat serving, which concentrates the aroma exactly where the sherry work shows. A single large cube is the only concession worth making. Mixed, the Negroni is the one construction that holds, the vermouth meeting the oloroso on its own terms; tonic thins the wood too quickly. Naming the village behind each botanical is a claim anyone can check. A sherry cask asks a gin to become something else; the marjoram is what argues back. It ends fruity, woody and warm.