Most people have a favourite drink and for some this is the simple and cold sparkling gin & tonic (whether it be made with Bombay Sapphire, Hendrick’s, Beefeater, Plymouth, or another brand). Though gin is one of the two components of this cocktail, it never seems to get much attention beyond reading about someone’s favourite brand or looking at the selection in the local shops. So let us take a look at gin.
The word gin comes to us through the French, Italian, and Dutch words for juniper, genièvre, ginepro, and jenever, respectively. Although often considered to have been invented in the mid 1700s, gin, along with the closely related Dutch spirit, genever, goes back much further. There are references to genever dating back to the 13th century, and the first claimed English exposure to gin was during the Eighty Years’ War. Aside from the taste itself, what served to popularize gin in Great Britain was, in fact, the monarchy: since the husband of Queen Mary II was William, Prince of Orange, it became fashionable to drink Dutch genever, which, after some slight alterations, became gin.
By exhibiting a 2-year sales growth rate of 49%, the current market is clamouring for premium gin and has an affinity for varying styles, production methods, and botanicals used; however, this was not always the case. As gin increased in popularity and started to be made domestically, its production went unmonitored and unlicensed, allowing for a product that was made on the cheap, with, on occasion, turpentine used as a flavouring agent and distilling in the presence of sulphuric acid. At it’s height of popularity, more than half of London’s 15,000 drinking establishments were gin shops, but the widespread popularity and low cost/quality led to gin being portrayed as scourge, causing social problems and higher death rates. Thankfully, several decades after its domestic introduction, and after some government regulation through the Gin Act of 1751, gin began to be more associated with a quality spirit, and less associated with societal ills.
The first known use of the word gin in English comes from the Anglo-Dutch philosopher Bernard Mandeville, who disdainfully writes in 1723 that, “The infamous Liquor, the name of which derived from Juniper-Berries in Dutch, is now, by frequent use..from a word of middling length shrunk into a Monosyllable, Intoxicating Gin.” Mirroring the contempt for gin that was previously mentioned, Alexander Pope writes in Epilogue to Satires (1738) that gin is “A spirituous liquor, the exorbitant use of which had almost destroyed the lowest rank of the People till it was restrained by an act of Parliament,” and over a century later, Benjamin Brodie, in Psychological Inquiries (1862), writes that, “It is under the influence of gin and brandy, much more than of beer or wine, that bodily diseases arise.” Finally though, as quality began to win over price and gin became more widely consumed and less demonised, we see the simple quote from Graham Greene’s 1938 novel, Brighton Rock, “I’ll have a gin.”
We remind you to enjoy gin in moderation and to never drink and drive.
