When the people down at Absolut got in touch with us about their new LGBT pride-inspired product, we were intrigued to say the least.

The brand new design – a rainbow-coloured offering, obviously – is indeed very attractive.

And it is good to see a tip of the hat to the LGBT community from a well-known, long-established brand, although the timing of the release is slightly odd, given London Pride was back in late June.

The new design also incorporates ‘semi-transparent triangles’ to allow the bottle's colours to overlap in distinct ways when viewed from different angles, thereby ‘symbolising the connection that is created when various unique individuals mix together’, according to Absolut.

I don’t know about that. But it does look pretty funky.

And while £21.99 for a litre is towards the top end of the vodka market, Absolut is widely-recognised as a premium brand. Some might even say the price is a guarantee of quality; others a placebo effect.

It does, undeniably, taste rather nice; this is no supermarket vodka. It goes down particularly nicely with orange juice, or lemonade. Seasoned vodka aficionados could even probably drink this straight.

The tried-and-tested formula, which has seen Absolut become a brand drunk all over the world, might be why the Swedish vodka company has decided to stick with what they know; the mixture in this new bottle is exactly the same as their ‘Original’ product.

So it was a definite ‘thumbs up’ from us at the Richmond & Twickenham Times.