Craft Gin Making

CHAPTER 1

A BRIEF HISTORY OF GIN

The history of gin is as colourful as it is long. About 2,000 years ago, as England struggled in the grip of the Roman Empire, it is believed that a Greek physician created a medicine using juniper berries steeped in wine. He swore it fought off chest infections. A thousand years later Italian monks were found to have a medicinal tonic wine infused with juniper berries.

By the sixteenth century the innovative Dutch were producing a spirit called 'genever', the forefather of our modern gin. The big difference is that it was produced by distilling malt wine to 50 per cent ABV. This meant the final product was so unpalatable due to the crude distilling methods available, that junipers and herbs were used to mask its revolting flavour. But it took off, and soon was one of the most popular drinks in the Netherlands.

England, by comparison, was a little late to the party. The gin boom hit England at the end of the 1600s. King William of Orange (of the Netherlands) became King of England, Ireland and Scotland in 1689. In order to bring a little bit of home with him, he introduced Dutch gin, together with new laws allowing for tax breaks on spirit production due to the fortuitous surplus of grain harvests.

King William III of Orange introduced Dutch gin to England in the 1600s.

A busy gin palace bar with customers buying drinks.

Even before the Dutch spirit became widespread across the country, our armed forces, fighting abroad, already had some awareness of its seemingly enviable properties. British sailors witnessed Dutch soldiers with a bottle of the spirit continually to hand, and noted how they seemed braver in battle - and the British sailors wanted a bit of that 'Dutch courage'. Fortunately for them, it was now easily accessible when they returned from their expeditions. Back home, cheaply distilled spirits, flavoured with juniper and herbs to cover the rough flavour, was the new business phenomenon. Dozens upon dozens of gin houses quickly sprang up, as the latest opportunity to make money was seized upon. The drink was an instant hit, and the London gin craze was about to begin.

THE GIN CRAZE

By the mid-1700s gin distillation had reached epidemic levels and was causing serious problems. The poor were drinking the new affordable gin to excess. It helped to mask the misery of their difficult lives, and from a practical point of view, it helped ward off the feelings of cold experienced by the destitute.

A sense of nationalism also boosted the popularity of gin across the country. The people of England turned their backs on French brandy, partly due to the expense, but also partly because of the political and religious conflict existing between France and England at the time.

The gin boom was blamed for debauched behaviour, especially among the poor: The drunkard's children by George Cruikshank.

The huge surge in gin drinking was also driven by the lack of any kind of legal requirements governing who could make and sell gin. The lack of regulation or qualifications needed to create gin fired the boom in production, as anyone with a pot or a bathtub could create a potent product to sell. Unlike today, a would-be distiller didn't need a licence to start his business. Gin distillation became a free-for-all, with all sorts of rogue ingredients being used in the process, including turpentine, sulphuric acid and even sawdust. In London alone more than 10 million gallons of gin were being distilled every year. By 1721, Middlesex magistrates were decrying gin as 'the principal cause of all the vice and debauchery committed among the inferior sort of people'.

Mother's Ruin

The easy availability and affordability of gin led to many women drinking it, more so than any other of the more expensive spirits. It contributed to their children being neglected, daughters sold into a life of prostitution, and even babies being given gin to quieten them. The horrific spell under which London's poor had fallen was keenly portrayed in a print by Hogarth called Gin Lane. This shows a drunken woman with ulcerated legs taking snuff as her baby falls into the gin vault below. Gin was described as 'the opium of the people' by the historical writer Ellen Castelow in her essay Mother's Ruin on the online site historic-uk.com. Many would do whatever it took to get their 'fix' of gin, which kept them warm in the bitter London winters and allayed their hunger pangs. At the time, the huge amount of rough gin being consumed was linked to male impotency and female sterility, which was considered to be the reason for the death rate exceeding the birth rate in the capital at this time.

The etching Gin Lane, by William Hogarth, is set in the parish of St Giles London, a notorious slum district that the artist depicted in several works around this time. Gin Lane depicts the squalor and despair of a community raised on gin.

The 1751 Gin Act

The government had a crisis on its hands. By 1730 it was horrified to discover that the average Londoner drank 14 gallons of spirits each year. Six thousand houses in London were selling gin to anyone who could pay the cheap prices. But this was having a ruinous effect on the population, who suffered ill health and madness through addiction, and drove up crime and prostitution rates.

By 1730 the average Londoner drank 14 gallons of spirits each year.

In 1751 the Gin Act was passed, its intention being to crack down on the consumption of spirits. It required distillers to have a licence, and allowed them only to sell to licensed retailers. As a result, the production of better quality gin increased, and consumption certainly fell. London distilleries strove to produce improved gin, and the capital became known for the quality of its product, hence the term 'London Dry', which is today held as the pinnacle of gin production. At the same time the traditional drink of the nation, beer, was being promoted again, alongside the consumption of tea. By the early part of the nineteenth century the price of beer was lower than that of gin for the first time in over a hundred years, and the gin craze was over. For now.

THE END OF THE GIN ACT

The 1751 Gin Act had huge repercussions, which stretched over 200 years. It changed the profile of gin drinkers from the poorest, who consumed it in huge quantities, desperate for the escapism it offered, to a drink that was sipped by the smarter classes wanting to enjoy the now more expensive and refined tipple. It also changed the way it could be made. The 1751 Gin Act banned production in any still with a capacity of less than 1,800 litres. So the thousands of small, illicit gin-production houses were now breaking the law and they went out of business, making way for large-scale businesses that monopolized production. Gordon's, Greenhall and Plymouth gin were all first distilled in the second half of the eighteenth century. Nothing much changed, then, for over 200 years - until 2008.

Two lifelong friends, Sam Galsworthy and Fairfax Hall, who wanted to revive the outstanding quality of London Dry Gin by opening their own distillery in the capital, discovered they couldn't, as they weren't big enough. But they refused to accept that they had to distil a minimum of 1,800 litres as the law required them to. They were up against the big boys, and they wanted to play by their own rules. So they challenged the law, in the shape of HMRC. They fought it and lobbied it and didn't give up. In 2008, after two long years of legal battles and in a historic victory, the Gin Act was rendered null and void, and the future of gin production in the UK was forever changed. In 2009 Sam and Fairfax opened the first distillery in London for almost two centuries. It was called Sipsmith.

This momentous change in the law has opened up the gin market to a vast array of small and large, artisan gin distillers. Once again the gin arena is changing as the market is flooded with a dizzying array of varied, hand-cut gins. The quality and range of gins produced in the UK is growing exponentially, and this trend is being replicated across the world. As gin lovers continue to explore their favourite spirit and discover myriad choices of quality, handmade gins, distilled with passion and great artistry, it's worth remembering that this wasn't even possible just over a decade ago.

And where will it stop? Gin consumption grew more than any other alcoholic drink in 2018 according to the IWSR, the leading supplier of data and market intelligence on the alcoholic drinks market. In Britain, gin sales grew by 32 per cent in 2018 compared to the previous year. The ISWR put much of this growth down to pink gin. Even Gordon's has bowed to the popularity of the pink tipple and introduced a pink gin. Until then you had to make your own by adding angustora bitters!

The growth of the gin market continues unabated. The richest man in the world has dipped his toe in the water, via his online retailer, Amazon, announcing the launch of its own gin. Sales of gin soared by a staggering 750 per cent in 2019, and there is a dizzying array of choices for the innocent drinker who wanders into a pub in search of a simple gin and tonic - there are seventy-eight brands from which to choose, and it is still one of the most popular drinks on the market.

By the end of 2019, gin was the UK's second largest spirits category, according to Jonny Peacock, customer development, strategy and planning director for Pernod Ricard UK. There are now over 300 gin distilleries in the UK,...