Black Cockatoo Distillery combines desert lime with allspice, liquorice root, angelica root and ginger in this Western Australian gin. Desert lime is a grape-sized native Australian citrus with a comparatively sweet tang next to a common lime, and the distillery builds the whole recipe on it, adding other citrus and the classic backbone of juniper.

The supporting botanicals extend the fruit rather than crowd it. Juniper gives the dry frame, angelica and liquorice root add texture and a rounded finish, ginger keeps the palate moving, and allspice, with its mix of clove, cinnamon and pepper notes, carries the citrus towards a warmer end. Freeze-dried, desert lime is sometimes likened to sherbet, which says a lot about the brightness of its flavour, more concentrated than an ordinary lime zest.

The gin is made in small batches in a traditional copper still at the edge of the Blackwood Forest, and bottled at 41% in 700 ml. The name is more than branding: the distillery gives 10% of its profits to the Kaarakin Black Cockatoo Rehabilitation Centre near Perth. Kaarakin rehabilitates injured black cockatoos, the birds that give the distillery its name. Desert Lime took Silver at the 2024 World Gin Awards and a Bronze at the London Spirits Competition the same year, and it is built first and foremost for the gin and tonic.

Fever-Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water keeps the citrus clear without aggressive bitterness. Pour 4 cl over plenty of ice, then 10 cl of tonic. The distillery suggests adding halved desert limes when they can be found, or otherwise squeezing a few drops from a lime wedge and sinking it in the drink; a thin slice of fresh ginger links the garnish back to the recipe.