Tenebrio molitor is a beetle larva, and it is macerated into this gin. Mealworms are farmed protein in most of the world and a provocation in a bottle, and what they actually contribute is a nutty undertone that no plant in the recipe could produce. Wave Distil double-distils around them at 40%, and numbers every bottle by hand.

The base is more interesting than the headline. Malted barley and fermented rye are distilled first to make the foundation, and rye in particular gives a faint peppery edge that a neutral grain spirit would not have. The second distillation adds juniper, lime zest and cucumber, the same three botanicals the house builds everything on, and they arrive fresh and clean: lime sharp and aromatic across the top, cucumber cool and watery through the middle, juniper green underneath. Then the maceration does its work. What the mealworms give is savoury rather than strange, a roasted nuttiness that settles low in the mouth and gives the body a weight the three botanicals alone would not have reached. Bold and smooth is the honest description, with a spicy lemony nose and a long balanced finish.

The oddity does not change how it should be poured. Load the ice first, keep the tonic neutral, and let the measure stay ordinary. Lime as a garnish tracks the recipe exactly; cucumber is the quieter alternative. Nothing sweetened, which would fight the nutty base. Insects are a legitimate ingredient in most of the world and a novelty in this one, and the recipe treats them as the former. What makes it work is that the mealworm is used for what it tastes of rather than for what it says on a label, and a drinker told nothing would simply find a nutty gin. It closes nutty, citric and full.