The Bravo de Esmolfe is a protected Portuguese apple, small and green and intensely aromatic, and it is nothing like the fruit a supermarket sells under the same name. António Cuco puts it at the centre of an Alentejo recipe where each botanical goes through a Portuguese copper pot still alone, then blended, at 40%.

Apple is a difficult thing to keep in a gin, because most varieties lose their character the moment heat is applied. This one survives because it is aromatic rather than merely sweet, and it arrives with a fresh orchard quality that the distillation has preserved intact. Vanilla works directly underneath it, laying a creamy warmth that extends the apple's sweetness without adding sugar to it. Then the spices arrive from the opposite direction and stop the fruit from settling: cinnamon warm and dry, cloves stronger and faintly medicinal, and between them they give the middle a depth that fruit alone never reaches. Lemon and orange peel cut the top, lemon verbena adds a lemony herbal note owing nothing to fruit, and coriander seed links it all with warm spice. Juniper stays crisp beneath, and that is what holds the sweetness in check.

Sweetness balanced this carefully deserves a mixer with no agenda. Neutral tonic, ice to the brim, and an ordinary measure. A thin slice of apple repeats the headline; a strip of orange peel follows the spice instead and is the better choice with food. Nothing sweetened, which the apple and the vanilla would not survive. Silver at the Gin & Tonic International Wine & Spirit Competition and bronze at the IWSC, both in 2016. A protected variety costs more than a commodity apple and the difference has to be audible to be worth it. It closes fruity, spiced and crisp.