Three botanicals, and no fourth. Juniper berries, gentian root and elderflower, all certified organic and all hand-picked in the Auvergne, distilled separately in a bespoke copper still and then blended with pure water. Archibald Distillations works from an 1830 distillery at Chevanceaux, near Cognac, and bottles this at 43%.

At that count each plant has to justify itself, and gentian is the one that makes the recipe work. Its bitterness is deep, clean and slightly medicinal, the same root that flavours the aperitifs of central France, and it hands the gin a spine that neither of the others could have supplied. Juniper answers it with resin and green sharpness, the two of them meeting on the same dry ground. Elderflower is the only soft element, honeyed and heady above them both, and without it the bitterness would read as austere. Nothing else is present to blur the argument.

The result is clean, fresh and direct, which is what a three-plant list produces when the three are chosen properly. There is no middle to hide in.

The sustainability is not decoration either: 100% French organic ingredients, gentian from a certified sustainable supply chain, a cork stopper, no plastic, a bottle of 96% recycled glass, and B-Corp certification behind all of it. Undiluted over ice, or stretched with a premium tonic, the producer naming its own Archibald Original. Minimalism is easy to claim on a label and difficult to survive in a glass. A three-botanical gin is the hardest kind to sell and the easiest kind to judge: there is no complexity to be mistaken for quality, and any weakness in the distillation shows up immediately because nothing else is present to cover it, which is presumably the point of setting the bar there.