Eleven botanicals is a short list for a London Dry, and Neto Costa keeps most of them to itself. Only juniper, angelica root and cardamom are named; the remaining eight stay undisclosed. What the distillery does explain is the method, and that is where the interest lies: each botanical is distilled on its own, by hand, before anything is assembled.

Distilling one plant at a time is slow and expensive, and the reason for doing it is control. Every botanical has its own extraction curve, so running them together means some are pushed too far while others barely give up anything; separating them lets each one be taken at its own best point. The result is a gin that tastes assembled rather than boiled together, and the aroma is notably mild for a London Dry, restrained where the style often shouts. Juniper leads with a clean pine that has no bitterness attached to it. Angelica root sits beneath, dry and earthy, giving the middle its backbone and the finish its length. Cardamom is the one that lifts, cool and slightly camphorous, and against the restraint of the rest it stands out more than its quantity would suggest. The unnamed eight fill the gaps with a herbal, gently spiced fullness, and the whole thing stays remarkably clean at 40%.

Purity of this kind survives a gin and tonic only if the tonic behaves. Choose a plain one with firm carbonation, ice the glass heavily, and let the proportions lean toward the spirit. A twist of lemon suits the freshness, though the more interesting option is orange peel, which follows the cardamom rather than the juniper. A distillery that withholds eight botanicals out of eleven is asking you to judge the liquid rather than the list. It closes clean, spiced and dry.