The alcohol starts as molasses left over from making sugar. Kakira is distilled on an estate in Uganda that grows and processes cane, so the base spirit here is a by-product of the farm rather than neutral grain bought in by the tanker, and the botanicals are grown on the same ground. Cane molasses ferments and distils into something with more body than grain alcohol, which counts for a lot when only five plants sit above it.

Five is not many, and each of the five is doing obvious work. African lime supplies the top, sharper and more floral than a supermarket lime. Ginger root brings a dry, fibrous heat that builds rather than strikes. Cardamom sits between them with its eucalyptus brightness. Black pepper is the one that decides the character, since pepper in a gin reads as structure and not as spice when there is enough alcohol behind it. Juniper runs beneath all four, and with so few plants competing it stays audible throughout.

That alcohol is the point of the bottling strength. At 47%, well above the usual 40 to 43, the gin carries its pepper and ginger through ice and tonic instead of dissolving into them. The botanicals are steeped before a copper pot distillation, which draws more out of roots and peppercorns than hanging them in the vapour would. The estate belongs to the Madhvani family, who established the farm in the Jinja region.

An Indian tonic is the natural long drink. Four centilitres of gin, ten of tonic, a thoroughly iced glass, a lime wheel and a few black peppercorns. Keep it all properly cold and stir briefly. At this strength the ice is not decoration: a thin glass of it warms fast, and the pepper turns harsh as soon as the drink loses its chill.