Poppy is not an ingredient anybody goes looking for in a gin, and it is here alongside violet flowers, gentian violet, almond and vanilla in a recipe that looks more like a perfumer's palette than a distiller's. The bottling comes from Alsace and refers back to an early twentieth-century gin made in a golden pot still, which explains both the name and the metal-coloured bottle. Forty percent.

Tangerine leads the citrus and it is a softer choice than lemon or grapefruit, sweeter and more perfumed, and it sets a top that never turns sharp. The flowers arrive directly beneath it. Violet is the one most people will name, powdery and slightly sweet in a way that reads almost as confectionery, and gentian violet extends that character with a drier, more bitter edge. Poppy adds a faint nutty greenness that is difficult to place and impossible to mistake once noticed. Almond and vanilla work at the base together, and between them they supply the roundness that keeps the flowers from floating: almond gives a marzipan weight without sugar, vanilla a warm creaminess. Cassia bark adds dry spice, coriander a warm seed note, angelica root the earth underneath, and juniper runs a clean pine seam through the middle of all of it.

Flowers and vanilla can slide into perfume if the mixer is careless. A dry, unsweetened tonic is the one sensible option, poured over a properly filled glass, and the ratio should lean toward the spirit. Tangerine or orange peel repeats what is already inside; skip berries and anything floral, which would double what the recipe has covered. A short measure taken cold and undiluted shows the almond best. A gin that looks like jewellery has to taste like more than its bottle. It closes floral, sweet-spiced and soft.