From the Woodland Floor: Highland Boundary's Larch & Honeysuckle

Some spirits start in a field. Highland Boundary's Larch & Honeysuckle starts on a woodland floor — which tells you most of what you need to know about it before you've even poured a glass.

Highland Boundary distils on-farm, and its "Wild Scottish Spirit" range leans on exactly that setting: botanicals gathered from the woods and hedgerows around the stills rather than ordered in from a supplier catalogue. For this expression, that means larch buds foraged in the surrounding woodland and honeysuckle flowers picked while still fresh — both rested in grain spirit for several months before a slow pass through a copper pot still. Nothing here is grown for the purpose. It's the countryside, distilled.

That patience shows in the glass. Expect a light, vanilla-tinged aroma with a genuine fruitiness, opening onto a smooth, citrus-bright palate carrying a gentle spice — and then something less expected on the finish: a lingering, umami-savoury note that larch resin brings and almost nothing else in a drinks cabinet does. It's a quietly unusual spirit dressed up in a very approachable 40% ABV, and it has the medals to back up the tasting notes: Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition and Silver at the USA Spirits Competition.

Treat it the way you'd treat a good gin, and let the foraged character do the rest of the work. A simple long serve — plenty of ice, a light tonic, no garnish needed — lets the larch and honeysuckle speak for themselves, though a sprig of actual honeysuckle or a twist of lemon never hurts. It's also a genuinely good one to pour for someone mid-conversation about "proper" gin versus everything else; the umami finish tends to stop that conversation rather usefully.

As a gift, it's an easy sell for anyone who likes their spirits with a story attached — foraged by hand, distilled on a working farm, and a world away from the usual London Dry lineup. We've just two bottles of this particular batch left on the shelf, so if woodland-foraged and quietly award-winning sounds like your kind of bottle, this is the week to bring one home.

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