Gruit herbs bittered beer for centuries before hops took over, and almost nobody distils with them. Bruut brings that medieval mixture into a gin made in collaboration with Bistro Bruut in Bruges, adds mead to the recipe, and ends up with something that belongs more to brewing history than to the modern gin shelf.

The gruit herbs are why the bottle is worth opening. Sage is the most recognisable of them, dry and slightly dusty with a savoury bitterness behind it; rosemary follows, resinous and pine-adjacent, which lets it hold hands with the juniper rather than competing; black pepper adds a sharp aromatic bite at the top. Together they build a herbal character that is genuinely old-fashioned in the literal sense, closer to a herb garden than to a bar. Nearly every brewer abandoned gruit five hundred years ago, so tasting it in any form is closer to archaeology than to novelty. Mead is what keeps all of that from becoming austere. A honey wine brings a soft, rounded sweetness that fills the space underneath the herbs, and it also adds a faint fruitiness that the herb list alone would never produce. The wood note comes from the resinous side of the herbs rather than from any barrel, and juniper runs through the middle keeping the recipe anchored to its category.

Herbs this assertive need room. A plain tonic and a heavily iced glass will do, but the more interesting route is a short measure over a single big cube, where the mead and the sage separate as the drink opens. Rosemary stays closest to the recipe as a garnish; orange peel takes over when the honey side needs lifting. Few restaurant collaborations produce anything this specific. It closes herbal, honeyed and dry.