This Christmas I’m going for all-Australian spirits. The quality and choice of spirits made here now, from gin to whisky to vodka to rum, from aperitivi to digestive – and spirits-adjacent drinks like vermouth – is so good and so wide-ranging it’s possible to create almost any conceivable cocktail or drink without reaching for a bottle that was produced overseas.

When I started writing about booze 30 years ago, this was inconceivable.