Peppermint is the brake on this recipe. Mango and pineapple together would make something closer to a fruit cup than a gin, and the mint is what stops that happening: it arrives cool and clean at the end, and it resets the palate each time the fruit threatens to settle. LièGin bottles it in Belgium at 40%.

Tropical fruit distilled rather than added afterwards behaves differently, and the aroma opens on ripe fruit without any of the syrupy quality a flavouring would bring. Mango is the rounder of the two, soft and fleshy with a faintly resinous edge that mangoes have and pineapples do not. Pineapple is sharper and more acidic, and it cuts through the mango from above, which is why the fruit half never becomes cloying on its own. Herbal accents run behind them both, adding a freshness that keeps the whole thing balanced rather than sweet. Underneath everything, juniper holds a green structure that stays audible through the fruit, which matters because the category only works if the spirit is still recognisably a gin. The palate is smooth and round, the finish clean.

Fruit this forward needs nothing added to it. The producer asks for a neutral tonic and that is exactly right, since a flavoured one would merely quarrel with the fruit already inside. Ice generously and pour normally. A wedge of pineapple repeats the recipe, while mint follows the cooling half instead and holds up better if the drink is going to sit. Simple cocktails suit it, provided the tropical character stays the point. Tropical fruit is the easiest thing to overdo and the hardest to keep honest. Plenty of bottles in this category let the fruit bury the gin; this one does not. It ends fruity, cooling and clean.