A blood orange is not an orange with a different colour. The anthocyanins that redden the flesh come with a berry edge, closer to raspberry than to citrus, and a gin built on one tastes noticeably unlike a gin built on the ordinary fruit. LièGin makes this bottling at 40%, with the red fruit as its central aromatic element.

Two supporting botanicals extend the same idea in different directions. Bergamot is the most perfumed citrus there is, floral and slightly bitter, and it sharpens the aroma at the point where the blood orange turns rounder. Hibiscus contributes the third angle: a tart, cranberry-like acidity with a floral lift, and it reinforces the red-fruit character that the orange already carries rather than adding a separate flower note. Underneath that citrus and floral top, the classic structure holds firm. Juniper supplies the dry backbone, coriander adds warm spiced seed, angelica lays a dry earthiness at the base, and cardamom brings a gentle camphorous warmth that stretches the finish without competing with the fruit. Balanced is the right word: the orange leads without ever becoming a cordial.

The gin suits a simple pour and a considered one equally. Neutral tonic keeps the citrus structure honest; a Mediterranean-style tonic works too, since its own citrus runs with the recipe rather than against it. Ice heavily, pour normally, and garnish with a wheel or a peel of orange. It is also the obvious gin for a cocktail wanting a pronounced orange character, a Negroni among them. Naming a fruit on a label is easy; tasting of it is not. The berry edge is the proof of it, and that is not something any ordinary orange could ever have supplied. It ends citric, floral, dry.