Fifteen years, three rooms.

The XV bottle is gold and amber, so the set lives in warm dark. It opens among the casks, barrel heads stamped XV, the bottle on a cask top beside a nosing glass. The fifteen years on the label are spent in a room like this, and the picture says so plainly.

Then the bottle goes upstairs. Tufted leather banquettes, a brass rail, a lamp on the panelling, a book on the table, a tumbler with one large cube. The glass changes from nosing to rocks as the evening turns from tasting to drinking.

The last frames go out to the music. A bass and a saxophone stand soft behind a round wooden table, a spot cutting through the haze. The players stay out of focus. The bottle keeps the only sharp plane in the room.