Parma violet belongs to a sweet shop rather than a botanical list, and putting it in a London Dry is a risk that only works because everything around it is dry. Forest Dry Gin Winter is the cold-season edition of Jurgen Lijcops's seasonal quartet, twenty-four botanicals distilled one at a time over a base spirit made from grain raised on an organic farm outside Antwerp, at 45%.

Juniper opens with real force, which is what a winter recipe needs and what the higher strength allows. The citrus follows and it does not arrive as fresh fruit: lemon marmalade is the closest description, cooked and slightly bitter, with bitter orange beside it doing the same work from a different direction. That cooked quality is what makes the whole thing read as a winter drink. Then the flowers appear, and this is where the violet earns its place: lavender is cool and aromatic, parma violet powdery and faintly confected, and against the marmalade bitterness neither becomes sweet. Blueberry adds a delicate fruit sweetness underneath, pear a quiet orchard roundness, coriander seed the warm spice, and angelica the dry ground that holds the finish. The close is dry and clean despite everything above it.

Winter gins usually mean cinnamon and cloves, and this one refuses that entirely. Neutral tonic in a glass iced right up makes a crisp long drink; a Negroni is the warmer route, and the better one during the months the bottle is named for. Orange peel follows the marmalade note; lemon is the sharper alternative. Nothing sweetened, which the violet would immediately turn into confectionery. Four gins for four seasons only works if winter gets something the others cannot have, and here that is the marmalade. It closes citric, floral and dry.