An Old Tom sits between a London Dry and a genever, rounder and a little sweeter than the first without going anywhere near the maltiness of the second. It is an eighteenth-century English style that nearly disappeared, and reviving it in Norway with a Nordic botanical list is an unusual thing to do with it. Bareksten bottles this one at 44%.

The extra roundness gives the fruit somewhere to sit. Lingonberries, blueberries and elderberries supply a forest-berry register that a dry gin would leave sharp and exposed, and here they read as depth rather than acidity. Orange peel and lemon peel work above them, the orange rounder and more present than in most gins of the house style. Liquorice lengthens the ending on a sweetness reinforcing the Old Tom character without any sugar having to do the work alone. The baking spices are the other half: cardamom cool, nutmeg soft and woody, cloves dark and penetrating, cassia bark warm and slightly coarse. Mint and chamomile cut through them with a green freshness, elderflower lays a floral note over the top, and angelica and orris root anchor the base while juniper holds the frame.

The nose is juniper, orange, elderflower, berries, liquorice and baking spice. The palate is rounded, spicy and lightly sweet, forest berries and citrus peel arranged over the classical botanicals, and the finish keeps the spice going after the fruit has faded.

A clean tonic and a strip of orange peel suits it, and it is the obvious gin for a Tom Collins, which is the drink the style was made for. The sweetness is structural rather than added, so nothing else needs to supply any. Reviving a lapsed English style with Norwegian berries is a stranger idea than it sounds, and it holds.