Eleven botanicals split into six groups, each distilled on its own before anything is blended: Base, Citrus, Herbal, Spice, Green Tea, and Fruity and Floral. That is how The Kyoto Distillery works, and at 54.5% ABV the method is easier to hear than it is in the standard bottling. Ki No Bi Sei takes the navy strength route - 54.5% is the historic Royal Navy figure, not the 57.1% that often gets quoted in its place - and the extra degrees thicken everything rather than sharpen it.

The roster is the same one the house built its name on. Juniper, orris and akamatsu, the Japanese red pine, form the base. Yellow yuzu and lemon carry the citrus. Red shiso and bamboo leaves handle the herbal and floral side, ginger and green sansho the spice, and gyokuro from Uji the tea. Rice spirit sits underneath it all, and the blend is married in stainless steel before being brought down with water from Fushimi, the brewing quarter whose soft water made Kyoto sake what it is.

Where the original is delicate, this is broad. Yuzu and lemon arrive first and stay bright even at strength, then akamatsu opens a dry resinous seam that runs the whole length of the palate. Gyokuro adds green tannin through the middle, shiso a cool edge beside it, and green sansho closes with its numbing citrus-pepper tingle. The mouthfeel is genuinely thick, which is the point of the higher strength here.

It can take a firm tonic without disappearing. One big cube of clear ice in the glass, 5 cl of gin, 15 cl of Fever-Tree Indian Tonic: the clean quinine bitterness meets the pine and the pepper without blunting either. Garnish with a thin slice of nashi pear - its quiet sweetness is a better foil to 54.5% than another citrus would be. It also holds its shape in a Martini or a Negroni, where lesser gins are simply outvoted.