Buddha's hand is a citrus with no flesh and no juice. The fruit is all peel and pith, split into finger-like segments, and it exists purely for its aroma, which makes it a strange thing to eat and an obvious thing to distil. Beveland macerates it with bitter orange and calamansi over a base of Jodhpur London Dry, at 43%, as a tribute to the Mandore gardens outside Jodhpur.

Three citrus fruits and none of them is a lemon. Bitter orange supplies the pith bitterness that gives the recipe its backbone, sharper and drier than any sweet orange would be. Calamansi is the small Southeast Asian fruit that tastes between a lime and a mandarin, intensely sour with a floral edge, and it occupies the top of the aroma. Buddha's hand works differently again: its peel is highly perfumed and carries almost no acidity at all, so it adds fragrance without adding sharpness, and the result stays elegant rather than aggressive. Underneath, the London Dry base does its work. Juniper holds a firm centre, coriander brings a warm spiced seed, and ginger a gentle heat arriving late. The nose shows wild berries and a balsamic freshness, and the finish is slightly sweet.

Citrus this layered wants a mixer with nothing to prove. Neutral tonic, a glass full of ice, and a normal measure. A slice of orange follows the bitter orange; a wedge of lime is the practical stand-in for the calamansi, which is difficult to find outside Asia. Skip flavoured mixers, which would flatten the Buddha's hand first. Silver at the 2024 India Wine and Spirits Awards is a fitting return for a bottle named after an Indian garden. A fruit that exists only to be smelled belongs in a still more than anywhere else. It ends citric, fragrant and gently spiced.