A breath-taking spirit Lockheart Industries would be proud of.

Not just the freshness of the vapours, but the cool sharpness of the flavour to Altitude Gin helps launch your senses straight to an Alpine mountainside where you’d expect to find the Von Trapp family belting out some singalong favourite from the Sound of Music: such is the subtlety of the botanicals employed, and the pureness of the production process.

In fact the taste experience is so tantalising, I found myself drifting back to a local Am-Dram production of Ben Elton’s hilarious play “Gasping” we saw in the 90s; where Lockheart Industries’ marketing man comes up with the idea of getting customers hooked on ‘designer air’.  Alpine was a big seller apparently, though it was dispensed via the company’s Suck and Blow machine rather than supplied in bottles.

So far I’ve only sampled the 50ml miniature which was contained in the Craft Gin Club advent calendar that Gin Lover One bought me to help while away the days of December – as everyone waited to see if Sage’s scientists were going to scare us all into closing down another Christmas – but it’s wet my appetite to source a full size bottle.

Neither the inch-high label on my sample nor the waste-of-space clip featuring Philip Schofield – which the back of the calendar urged me to go online for – offered any information on the provenance: so not for the first time I’m grateful to Diffords Guide for revealing the recipe.

Key botanicals include Elderflower, Myrtille and Pine needles from the foothills of the Alps; blended with the fully present juniper and angelica root, as well as after tastes of green cardamom and coriander seed.  Orange peel is also in the prescription dispensed by master distiller, Dr David Clutten who is also reputed to have been involved with crafting Bombay Sapphire and No 3, amongst other gins.

For those readers who’d like to try a mountain gin that’s knocking on the door of our Top Ten, Altitude is available online at a lofty £38 for a 70 cl bottle.