GIN

'Gin' is a spirit flavoured with juniper berries. 'Distilled gin' is made by redistilling white grain spirit which has been flavoured with juniper berries. 'Compound gin' is made by flavouring neutral grain spirit with juniper berries without redistilling and can be considered a flavoured vodka.
The most common style of gin, typically used for mixed drinks, is 'London dry gin'. London dry gin is made by taking a neutral grain spirit (usually produced in a column still) and redistilling after the botanicals are added. In addition to juniper, it is usually made with a small amount of citrus botanicals like lemon and bitter orange peel. Other botanicals that may be used include anise, angelica root and seed, orris root, licorice root, cinnamon, coriander, and cassia bark.
Other types of distilled gin include jonge- and oude- Jenever or Genever (young and old Dutch gin), Plymouth gin, and Old Tom gin. Compound gin is gin where the juniper flavouring is added to the neutral spirit and there is no redistillation. 'Sloe gin' is a common ready-sweetened form of gin that is traditionally made by infusing sloes (the fruit of the blackthorn) in gin. Similar infusions are possible with other fruits.
A well-made gin will be relatively dry compared to other spirits. Gin is often mixed in cocktails with sweeter ingredients like tonic water or vermouth to balance this dryness.

Contents

History

Cocktails with gin

Brands of gin

Premium / famous brands

Historical brands

See also

References

External links

History

Gin originated in the Netherlands in the 17th century. Its invention is often credited to the physician Franciscus Sylvius. It spread to England after the Glorious Revolution put William of Orange on the British throne. Dutch gin, also known as ''jenever'' or ''genever'', is a distinctly different drink from English-style gin; it is distilled with barley and sometimes aged in wood, giving it a slight resemblance to whisky. Schiedam, in South Holland, is famous for its jenever. Jenever is produced in a pot still and is typically lower in alcohol and more strongly flavoured than London gin.

Gin became very popular in England after the government allowed unlicensed gin production and at the same time imposed a heavy duty on all imported spirits. This created a market for poor-quality grain that was unfit for brewing beer, and thousands of gin-shops sprang up all over England. By 1740 the production of gin had increased to six times that of beer, and because of its cheapness it became extremely popular with the poor. Of the 15,000 drinking establishments in London, over half were gin-shops. Beer maintained a healthy reputation as it was often safer to drink the brewed ale than unclean plain water. Gin, though, was blamed for various social and medical problems, and it may have been a factor in the high death rate that caused London's previously increasing population to remain stable. The reputation of the two drinks was illustrated by William Hogarth in his engravings ''Beer Street'' and ''Gin Lane'' (1751). This negative reputation survives today in the English language, in terms like "gin-mills" to describe disreputable bars or "gin-soaked" to refer to drunks, and in the phrase "Mother's Ruin," a common British name for gin.
The Gin Act 1736 imposed high taxes on retailers and led to riots in the streets. The prohibitive duty was gradually reduced and finally abolished in 1742. The Gin Act 1751 was more successful, however. It forced distillers to sell only to licensed retailers and brought gin-shops under the jurisdiction of local magistrates. Gin in the 18th century was produced in pot stills, and was somewhat sweeter than the London gin known today.
In London in the early eighteenth century, gin sold on the black market was prepared in illicit stills (of which there were 1500 in 1726) and was often adulterated with turpentine and sulphuric acid. [1] As late as 1913 Webster's Dictionary states without further comment that 'Common gin is usually flavored with turpentine.' [2]
The column still was invented in 1832, and the "London dry" style was developed later in the 19th century. In tropical British colonies, gin was used to mask the bitter flavour of quinine, a protection against malaria, which was dissolved in carbonated water to form tonic water. This was the origin of today's popular gin and tonic combination, even though quinine is no longer used against malaria, nor would it be necessary for the majority of today's consumers of the drink.
Gin is a popular base spirit for many mixed drinks, including the martini. Secretly produced "bathtub gin" was commonly available in the speakeasies and "blind pigs" of Prohibition-era America due to the relative simplicity of the production method. Gin remained popular as the basis of many cocktails after the repeal of Prohibition.
The National Gin Museum is in Hasselt, Belgium.

Cocktails with gin

★ Apoica

★ Gimlet - gin and lime juice

★ Gin and Tonic - gin and tonic water

★ Gin Rickey - gin and carbonated water

★ Gin Fizz

★ Gin bucket

★ Gin Milk Punch - gin and Milk

★ Long Island Iced Tea

★ Maiden's Prayer

★ Martini - gin and vermouth

★ Negroni

★ Orange Blossom - Plymouth gin and orange juice

★ Pimm's N°1.

★ Pink Gin

★ Punkdutch

★ Presbyterian

★ Ramos gin fizz

★ Salty Dog

★ Satan's Whiskers

★ Singapore Sling

★ Tin Roof

★ Tom Collins

★ London Mule

★ Uncle Makee - gin and diet cola with lime
Other common mixers include orange soda, lemon juice, pomegranate juice, grapefruit juice, ginger ale, bitter lemon, ginger beer, cranberry juice, Kool-Aid, Fresca, Wink, 7up, and Dr Pepper.

Brands of gin

Premium / famous brands

★ 209 Gin - produced in San Francisco by Distillery No. 209

★ Anchor Junipero Gin - produced in California by Anchor Steam Brewery

★ Aristocrat gin

★ Aviation Gin - produced in Portland, Oregon by House Spirits

★ Bafferts Gin - Triple-distilled with four botanicals in England

★ Barton Gin

★ Beefeater - first produced in 1820

★ Bellringer Gin - English gin

★ Blackwood's Superior Nordic Vintage Dry Gin

★ Blue Riband

★ BOLS - Dutch jenever

★ Bombadier Military Gin

★ Bombay - distilled with eight botanicals

★ Bombay Sapphire - distilled with ten botanicals

★ Boodles British Gin

★ Boomsma Jonge Genevere Gin

★ Booth's - first produced in 1790 by Sir Felix Booth

★ Broker's Premium London Dry Gin

★ Bulldog Gin - infused with Poppy and Dragon Eye.

★ Burnett's Gin - based on a 1770 recipe by Sir Robert Burnett

★ Caballito - Panamanian gin

★ Cadenhead's Old Raj Gin - 110 proof gin containing a small amount of saffron, which imparts a slight yellowish/greenish tint

★ Calvert Gin

★ Cascade Mountain Gin - uses hand-picked wild juniper berries, distilled in Oregon

★ Citadelle - distilled with nineteen botanicals in France

★ City of London Gin - a premium small batch London Distilled Gin created and distilled at one of the two remaining distilleries in London, UK.

★ Coldstream

★ Cork Dry Gin

★ Damrak Amsterdam

★ Dirty Olive - olive-flavored

★ DH Krahn Gin - produced in Northern California

★ Downings - produced in New Zealand

★ Eyguebelle - a French gin using predominately of orange peel

★ Gale Force - Nantucket, Massachusetts, 88.8 proof

★ Geek Gin

★ Gilbey's London Dry Gin

★ Gin Bulag - produced in the Philippines, loosely translated as "Gin That Makes You Go Blind."

★ Gin Llave - produced in Argentina

★ Gin Lubuski

★ Gin Xoriguer - produced in Minorca

★ Ginebra San Miguel - produced in the Philippines

★ Glen's Gin

★ Gordon's - "by appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain"

★ Greenall's

★ Hamptons Gin

★ Hayman's 1820 Gin Liqueur - a sweetened classic London distilled gin.

★ Hayman's Old Tom Gin - a re-creation of the Old Tom Gin recipe, a lightly sweetened style of gin, which was originally popular in the 18th and 19th century

★ Hendrick's Gin - infused with cucumber, coriander, citrus peel and rose petals.

★ Iceberg Gin - made with iceberg water

★ Juniper Green Organic Gin - first gin made from all organic ingredients in England with four botanicals

★ Larios - produced in Spain

★ Leyden Dry Gin - distilled three times in small batches, twice in column stills then in a pot still

★ London Silk

★ Magellan Gin - a blue coloured gin, from Iris root

★ McCormick Gin

★ Martin Miller's Gin - London dry gin, with over eight botanicals blended with Icelandic spring water

★ Mr. Boston

★ Phillips Dry Gin - English gin since 1963

★ North Shore Distillery Distiller's Gin No. 6 - complex blance of citrus, spice and floral notes see North Shore Distillery

★ Pink 47 London Dry Gin - in a diamond shaped bottle see Pink 47

★ Plymouth - first distilled in 1793

★ Quintessential

★ Raffles Gin - Ian Macleod Distillers Ltd

★ Sarticious Gin - Dutch style gin distilled in Santa Cruz, California, orange and cilantro

★ Seagram's Gin

★ Silver Wolf Gin

★ Smeets - Belgian brand, produce a great range of fruit flavoured gins "Jenèvre de fruits" as well as their original

★ South Gin - triple distilled in New Zealand using juniper berries, lemon, orange, coriander seeds, Angelica leaves, Orris, Gentian root, and New Zealand-native manuka berries and kawa kawa leaves, believed by the indigenous Māori people to offer medicinal properties

★ Steinhäger

★ Swordsman

★ Taaka - a London dry gin with a "secret formula"

★ Tanqueray

★ Tanqueray Rangpur - distilled with the botanical rangpur lime

★ No.10 from Tanqueray

★ Toojburn's Signature

★ Van Gogh Gin - Dutch gin produced with ten botanicals in small batches. Triple distilled, twice in column stills then in a traditional pot still

★ Whitley Neill London Dry Gin - contains two African botanicals, the fruit of the Baobab tree (the "Tree of Life") and the Cape Gooseberry

★ Uganda Waragi - triple distilled Ugandan Gin

Historical brands

★ Fleischmann's Gin - Marketed as the original American gin, first distilled in 1870

See also

★ List of cocktails

References

★ From the bathtub to the boardroom: gin and its history, , Grant, Deegan, MY2K: Martini 2000, 1999

★ The Much-lamented Death of Madam Geneva: The Eighteenth-century Gin Craze, , Patrick, Dillon, Review, 2002, ISBN 0-7472-3545-7

External links

★ A thorough article about the history and types of gin

★ Gin in Victorian London

★ Recipes with Gin

★ Gin news page - Alcohol and Drugs History Society

★ Gin: The Spirit of England