St John's wort and red chili are not ingredients anyone expects to find behind an orange. One is a medicinal herb almost never sent through a still, the other a source of heat rather than flavour, and their presence explains why this bottling stays dry where a citrus gin usually turns sweet. V2C makes it in the Netherlands at 41.5%.

Orange runs the aroma from the first moment, zesty and bright, and it is joined by a sweet-bitter quality on the palate that a peel gives and a juice never can. Above it, lemon plays the sharper counterpart. The chili is the surprise underneath: not sharp, not fiery, but a slow warmth that arrives after the citrus has passed and holds through the finish, and ginger extends it with a cleaner heat of its own. St John's wort contributes a dry, slightly bitter herbal note that pulls the whole thing away from confectionery, and laurel sits beside it with its resinous bay-leaf character. The classic frame holds it all: juniper as the backbone, coriander and angelica behind, liquorice lengthening the close. Dry and structured, the fruit prominent but never syrupy.

Heat and citrus together want a mixer that takes no side. Neutral tonic is the safe route; a lightly citrus tonic works too, since it moves with the recipe rather than across it. Ice properly, pour a full measure, and take a broad piece of orange peel, expressed over the surface, as garnish. It also makes a notably warm Negroni. Eleven botanicals to make an orange gin that is not sweet is a lot of work for a subtraction. Most producers would simply have added more orange. This one reached for a bitter herb and a chili instead, which is the longer road to the same dryness. It ends citric, warm, dry.