These days, I am not a big drinker. Once upon a time I would never get a hangover; you could pour straight turpentine down my throat mix it with a Mike’s Hard Lemonade or eight and I would be fine in the morning. The first time I awoke with a brain melting headache and racing to throw up, I was done. Okay, that’s not really true but my days of heavy drinking were numbered from there. As time wore on, I really could only maybe stomach one drink without a raging headache. Until I met Gin. I have heard that clear alcohols like vodka or gin are less likely to lead to a hangover and that is due to a substance called a congener. (Vodka still makes me feel wretched, honestly.) In alcoholic beverages, congeners are produced during the fermentation process and include small amounts of things like methanol and other fusel alcohols. Congeners are responsible for the aroma and taste of most distilled beverages and are found in higher quantities in darker alcohols such as red wine or bourbon. Perhaps because of the lesser propensity for hangovers, gin has recently grown tremendously in popularity.
For those unfamiliar with gin, because let’s be honest, gin probably isn’t even your dad’s drink, it’s ever more old man than that, (Maybe your grandpa’s drink, gin is a distilled alcoholic drink made from grain distillation and flavored with juniper berries. technically a seed cone and not a berry, juniper berries start out green and mature to a deep purplish color. While the dark, mature berries are used predominantly in Scandinavian cuisine, the mature, green berries are traditionally green berries are used in gin production.
Gin is widely believed to be invented by Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius in the 17th century however, the oriGIN actually dates back to 11th century Italy when monks were attempting to create medical remedies for the Black Death. Our boy Franciscus did some cool stuff though. An early champion of Decartes and one of the first to support the idea that blood circulated through the body, Sylvius was the first to discover the lateral sulcus and the cerebral aqueduct in the human brain. The lateral sulcus or Sylvian Fissure separates the frontal lobe and parietal lobe from the temporal lobe. The cerebral aqueduct or Sylvian Aqueduct is a sort of canal connects the midbrain with the third ventricle to the fourth ventricle of the brain. Sylvite, or potassium chloride in its natural form, is also named after our boy Franciscus. So you don’t need to feel bad for the guy when I say he didn’t actually invent gin. The popularity of gin was certainly on the rise in the mid 17th century as over 400 Dutch and Flemish distilleries cropped up and began flooding pharmacies with their gin like creations to cure any number of ailments such as lumbago, gout, gallstones, and various other stomach and kidney ailments. The British troops were introduced to gin when they were stationed in Holland as part of the Eighty Years War, specifically in the later half of the Thirty Years War in which troops noticed gin’s calming effect before battles with the Spanish.
Gin gained a strong foothold in England in the right around the time of the Restoration. It’s popularity soared when Dutch born William III (William of Orange) and Mary II ascended the English throne in 1689 after what is known as the Glorious Revolution in which William with the support of the “Immortal Seven.” These seven English nobles gave support to William after King James II had put seven bishops on trial after they openly opposed James’ Declaration of Indulgence granting religious freedoms to his subjects which was a threat to the power of the Anglican Church. Around this time, crude inferior forms of gin used turpentine instead of juniper berries for flavor. MMMmmm, love that turpentine taste.
Gin provided an alternative to the English people over heavily taxed imports such as French brandy. Due to England’s poor relationship with France, the government tried to curtail imports from France as much as possible going so far as to allow unlicensed gin production. This was totally a great idea. What could possibly go wrong when the price of food went down, the common man had more money in his pocket, and there were over 7,000 gin joints in London making unregulated alcohol?
The Gin Craze lasted from around 1720 through around 1757. With the gin flowing through the inner city of London to people who were used to drinking nothing stronger than beer, the effects of gin were rapidly apparent. Gin allowed the poor to forget the squalor that surrounded them for mere pennies. In 1723, the death rate in London was higher than it’s birth rate and remained so for the next decade. Approximately three quarters of babies died before reaching age five during this time. Gin was blamed for lowering fertility in women. Women addicted to gin would often neglect their newborns or quiet them with gin. This led to gin gaining the nickname, “Mother’s Ruin.” Parliament, realizing how destructive gin was becoming, passed five major Acts, in 1729, 1736, 1743, 1747 and 1751, designed to limit the consumption of gin. The Gin Acts of 1729 and 1756 aimed to impose heavy taxes. Particularly the Gin Act of 1736 known as “The Act of Laying Duty upon Retailers of Spiritous Liquors” taxed gin £1 per gallon with a two gallon minimum for purchase (that’s roughly £217 or $287 by today’s standards). It also required retailers to pay a £50 annual fee to sell gin with heavy penalties if they were caught selling without. As one could imagine, this did not sit well with people and riots broke out. Despite informant rewards to people that turned information over on illegal distilleries, production still rose. It wasn’t until the Gin Act of 1743 and the War of Austrian Succession did the numbers begin to drop. By 1751, soldiers began returning to London after the end of the war. Moral reform crusades gained popularity and the Tippling Act introduced a moderate tax increase and small licensing fee. This Gin Act seemingly stopped all back alley gin sales. I would be remiss not to mention that in 1757, all English grain distilling was banned due to a poor harvest and it continued until 1759 when the harvest finally proved to be bountiful.
Fast forward in time to 1862 and the penning of the first bartender’s guide by Jerry Thomas. Considered to be the father of American mixology, Thomas opened saloons all across the country, including four in New York City. His guide contained numerous gin recipes including the Fizz and the Sour and by the 1876 edition, also included the Tom Collins. Jerry Thomas along with many other mixologists helped usher in what we now call The Golden Age of Cocktails. Lasting from 1860 until the start of Prohibition, this time saw the invention of gin cocktails like the martini, the Ramos gin fizz, the Aviation (not to be confused with the brand Aviation Gin owned by Ryan Reynolds), and the Singapore Sling.
Prohibition did not slow down the popularity of gin. In fact, it had the opposite effect. Due to the relative ease and speed of producing gin or gin like alcohol, bootleggers would ferment just about anything—from fruit or beets or even potato peels, mix that with glycerin and add a touch of juniper oil (gotta make it taste good!) This concoction was so vile it needed to be cut with water, but the bottles these home brewers used were too tall to fit under the spigot in the kitchen sink, so they would be forced to use the bathtub faucet. And thus, bathtub gin was born! There are some thoughts about people using bathtubs to distill their alcohol to go undetected by police, but as distillation needs to be in an enclosed environment, it’s not as likely people were distilling in their tubs. Now, bathtub gin really refers to almost any homemade spirits produced by amateurs, but we’ll consider it all gin for the purposes of this post. Even cut with water, few could stomach the taste of these illegal spirits so speakeasies were forced to get creative and began adding fruit juice, bitters, and soda to mask the taste. Drinks like the Bee’s Knees added honey and lemon juice to cover the harsh bathtub tang. What is now known as the Royal Hawaiian debuted in the 1920’s under the name the Princess Kaiulani and features gin, pineapple juice, and orgeat. The Last Word mixes gin, maraschino liqueur, lime and Green Chartreuse(!) If you have never tried Chartreuse, it is 110 proof, made from 150 different herbs and is incredibly spicy and pungent. If that couldn’t cover the taste of bathtub gin, literally nothing would.
The demand for gin continued well after the end of Prohibition, particularly for imported English gin as the Americans were thirsty for the real deal gin. During the 1950’s the new dry gin became quite popular as did all things British with the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II being broadcast across the world and Sir Edmund Hillary scaling Mount Everest. The Martini reigned supreme for most of the 50’s being the cocktail of choice for most of America. It wasn’t until 1967 that vodka overtook gin as the most popular spirit in the United States. Whiskey and rum based drinks also became immensely popular over the course of the 1970’s through the 1990’s, with gin becoming rarely reached for outside of a rare Gin and Tonic.
As the Peter Allen song says, “When everything old is new again/ I might fall in love with you again,” so too has America fallen back in love with gin. (Side note, Mr. Allen, you can’t rhyme “again”with itself, that’s repetitive, not rhyming.) Gin has been experiencing a Renaissance lately with major bottlers such as Bombay Sapphire, Plymouth’ relaunch, and Tanqueray No Ten, producing a less juniper forward gin, the launching of brands such as Hendrick’s, and the emergence of several small craft distilleries. Craft brewing of beer has been hugely successful for quiet some time so it only makes sense that the art expanded beyond just beer. Craft gin often means that it is being created by a small group or distiller, with a focus on sourcing the best local ingredients, individualized care into recipe development, and are generally produced in small batches to maintain quality control. These small craft distilleries are looking for new ways to infuse flavors that meld with the essential juniper taste and are on the forefront of the resurgence of the popularity of gin. I personally am a fan of Short Path gin from Everett, MA. If you, dear reader are over the age of 21, which I assume you are, I suggest trying a gin based cocktail. These new distilleries are really creating any number of gins that are perhaps more palatable than those medicinal style guns you remember.
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