History of: Gin
Country of origin:
Netherlands
Why we love it:
Dry gin martinis are, in our estimation, the best martinis out there. A little olive juice, shaken over ice… it is perfection.
Where to find it (besides the liquor store):
The most common type of gin is now London Dry Gin, from England. But the United States has taken up the mantle of gin production, as well as Spain, Holland, and even Germany. Currently, the United States is the largest gin producer.
What it’s made of:
Gin, in all it’s incarnations, is a juniper berry flavored spirit. Its made of a neutral grain spirit, with botanicals added in various ways after the first distillation. The myth that it’s made with juniper berries is false. However, it IS flavored with it, by a variety of methods.
Classifications:
Gin is not a heavily regulated product. In fact, there was a time (see: History) where gin was not regulated at all. There are a few distinct types of gin that have been and are still made.
London Dry Gin:
This is the most widely produced style of gin. It is dry, as the name implies, and is flavored largely with juniper berries. This style is produced in the UK, the U.S. and Spain, in column stills, with a higher proof and lighter body and flavor profile.
Genever/Jenever:
Also called “Holland’s” gin, and is, as you might guess, the Dutch style of gin. They are produced in Holland, Belgium, and Germany. They are sometimes aged in oak casks, and take on flavor profiles reminiscent of whiskey. They are usually lower proof than London Dry, and are mostly produced in pot stills.
There are two kinds of Genever – Old (Oude) and Young (Jonge): Oude is the original style. It’s has a yellow color to it, relatively sweet, and aromatic. Jonge is drier and lighter, more similar to London Dry.
Plymouth Gin:
Is a more full-bodied cousin of London Dry. It’s fruiter, and quite aromatic. These days, the name Plymouth is a trademark that is held solely by one distillery, called (you guessed it!) Plymouth Coates & Co. At one time, however, it was a style originating from the English Channel port of Plymouth.
Old Tom Gin:
There aren’t many of these left, and you rarely find them in the U.S. Old Tom was and is a sweetened gin that was, at one time, the dominant style in England during the 1700s. It’s called “Old Tom” because certain pubs used to have a black cat shaped wooden plaque outside that would have a channel into the pub. When customers dropped in a coin, the bartender would pour gin through the channel and out a spout (through the cat plaque) in to the customer’s mouth. Gives a new meaning to “one for the road,” eh?
Sloe Gin:
Sloe gin is, well, gin. Technically. However, the flavor is derived from blackthorn berries, which are commonly known as “sloes.” You can usually find it at a bar, usually next the banana liqueur, Galliano, and other liqueurs that are only used in a handful of recipes and are therefore giving bartenders something to dust.
History:
The word gin itself is a truncation of the word genever, the Dutch word for juniper. Although, there seem to be some who think it comes from the French word genevrier. We invite you to choose for yourself, but our impression is that the Dutch created the spirit, so she suspects the origination is the Dutch language. Ahem.
There are two stories to the origination of the spirit Genever. One claims that around the late 1580s, it was discovered by British troops who were fighting on the side of the Dutch in their War for Independence against the Spanish. The Dutch were already making it and gave it to the thirsty troops, making it the first incarnation.
The more documented version is: Doctor Franciscus Sylvius (or de la Boe, depending on what you read) of Leiden discovered that a tastier liquor was made by adding juniper berries and a number of other herbs and spices to the grain mash, the result being more pleasant than the previous incarnation. Because he was a doctor, he originally promoted the result as a medicinal product. (We imagine it would be funny if the side effects listed were drunkenness.)
Medicinal properties or no, the spirit made it across the Channel to England. Its arrival, incidentally, coincided with the ascension of a Dutch ruler and his English wife to the English throne. (William and Mary of Orange, respectively). They were Protestants, and William decided that anything Catholic was not welcome in his little kingdom, including brandy and wine.
His solution? Impose ridiculous taxes on imported brandy and wine, and remove all taxes and licensing from gin production. Well it worked, maybe too well. By 1740 gin production was six times that of beer, and it’s estimated that a quarter of households in London were used to make or sell gin. Consumptions were up to 2 pints per week per person… and that does not exclude children. Public drunkenness became a problem, and major health problems (that are now well documented and understood) were beginning to surface.
Realizing that they had let the inmates run the asylum, in 1729 Parliament passed the first Gin Act, which imposed a tax of 5 shillings per gallon on the seller. When that wasn’t enough, the Gin Act of 1736 imposed a tax of 20 shillings per gallon, which didn’t help either, it merely caused riots as it was unpopular with the working class that relied on gin production to survive, financially and mentally, we assume.
Things were finally settled with the Sale of Spirits Act 1750 (aka the Gin Act 1751), where Parliament decried that gin distillers could not sell to unlicensed merchants. It also increased fees charged to merchants, thus eliminating mom and pop operations, and leaving the distribution gin to distillers that could afford licenses and retailers that could pay the new taxes.
By that time the taxes on imported spirits had abated a bit, and a steady stream of brandy and rum was now flowing into London, keeping the masses under control but probably no less intoxicated, one would think.
Near the middle of the 1800s, an effort to clean up “Old Tom” gin was underway. The Victorian era wouldn’t allow such sullies spirits to be the continued reputation of London, and thus London Dry Gin was born.
The main distinction of London Dry, as we have already talked about, is the distilling and flavoring process. Remember, Genever was produced in pot stills, and in 1832 the continuous still was invented, which produced a cleaner, drier version of the Dutch spirit. London Dry, here we come! The British worked very hard to give its beloved gin a facelift. They played with the flavors, the number of times it was distilled, whatever they could do to refine it… until it was lowbrow no more.
Around the same time, the British started expanding to all parts of the globe. Of course, they took their new gin with them. Most specifically, they took it to the New World, which explains the continued affair the United States has with gin. The British were also going south however, and with south comes malaria. Which brings us to an aside:
Usually we would not go into a specific origin of a drink, but she cannot resist this one! Quinine was used at that time to ward off malaria. British soldiers would have to take a daily dose of quinine, and in large doses it tastes quite bad. Well, those soldiers had plenty of gin, and plenty of quinine that they had to take, so they mixed business with pleasure… so to speak. Because the quinine was considered medicinal, it was dubbed “tonic water”. So, on a daily basis, the soldiers drank a gin and tonic, to ward off malaria! Just to make the story even better, modern day tonic water is also made with quinine, although at much lower concentrations, and it’s probably not capable of curing malaria either.
(For the bartenders out there: it’s also why on some of the older beverage guns, Q represents tonic… Q for Quinine!)
Back to the British expansion! Gin became the favored drink of the American forefathers, and it was widely produced in what became the United States. But one event that pushed gin over the edge and made it what is it here today.
Yes, we made the silly mistake of Prohibition in 1920, which you can read all about it in the Freewheeling History of Hooch. Gin, it seems, was the one spirit that flourished during this dark time of American History… mostly because of how absurdly easy it is to make.
See, gin, unlike its boozy cousins, does not need aging. No wooden casks needed, Remember that amazing surge in gin production in London in the 1700s? Same principle here. The poor could make it, there was a demand because all imported spirits were illegal and people wanted to drink, and it was so easy to make you could make in your bathtub (yes, they made it in bathtubs. It’s where we get the moniker “bathtub gin”). It didn’t taste great, but it did the trick. Bootlegging ended (mostly) with the end of Prohibition, but gin stayed. And now the U.S. is the largest producer of gin in the world.
Gin Today:
Today, gin is still a popular spirit. However, the incline of vodka has inadvertently meant a decline in gin popularity. Why? Our theory is because vodka has a milder flavor, can be mixed easier, and people, as in most areas of their lives, want drinking to be as easy and flavorless as possible. We say, give it a try! By it’s construction, it’s very similar to flavored vodka. What do you have to lose?
These are the countries that have kept the flame burning:
The United States, at the top of the heap, almost exclusively produces London style Dry Gin, but is now dubbed American Dry Gin. They are a slightly lower proof than the London counterpart and less flavorful.
Germany produces a gin that is more of a Genever style, called Dornkaat. It is very light in body and has a more delicate flavor.
Holland (genever) and Belgium (genever) still produce the spirit in pot stills. They are lower proof than English gins, are aged in oak on occasion and are now being flavored. (We can thank the vodka industry for the influx of flavored EVERYTHING.)
Spain is a huge producer and consumer of gin. They make it in a dry English style, and mainly mix it with cola. We have never tried this but must comment that it sounds like a strange combination at best.
Our hats go off to the good people out there who are still making gin. And to those who made it bathtubs when they couldn’t get it anywhere else. And finally, to the U.S. government, for repealing Prohibition in 1933. Without you, we still might be forced to drink what we have, instead of what we want.
