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This article concerns the beverage. For other uses see Gin (disambiguation).

Gin is a spirit flavoured with juniper berries. Distilled gin is made by redistilling white grain spirit which have 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, 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 1 History 2 Cocktails with gin 3 Brands of gin 3.1 Premium / famous brands 3.2 Historical brands 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

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 a 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^{[citation needed]}.

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^{[citation needed]}. 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 of 1736 imposed high taxes on retailers but led to riots in the streets. The prohibitive duty was gradually reduced and finally abolished in 1742. The Gin Act of 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][2]

The column still was invented in 1832, and the "London dry" style was developed later in the 19th century. In tropical English 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 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.

• Apoica
• Gimlet - gin and lime juice
• Gin and Tonic - gin and tonic water
• Gin Rickey - gin and carbonated water
• Gin Fizz
• Gin Milk Punch - gin and Milk
• 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

Other common mixers include orange soda, lemon juice, pomegranate juice, grapefruit juice, ginger ale, ginger beer, cranberry juice, Kool-Aid, Fresca, Wink, and 7up, and Dr Pepper.

• 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
• 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
• Coldstream
• Cork Dry Gin
• Damrak Amsterdam
• Dirty Olive - olive-flavored
• DH Krahn Gin - produced in Northern California
• Eyguebelle - a French gin using predominately of orange peel
• Geek Gin
• Gilbey's London Dry Gin
• Gin Bulag - produced in the Philippines, directly translated as "Blind Gin."
• Gin Llave - produced in Argentina
• Gin Lubuski
• Gin Xoriguer - produced in Minorca
• Ginebra San Miguel - produced in the Philippines
• Glen's Gin
• Hamptons Gin
• Magellan Gin - a blue coloured gin, from Iris root
• Gordon's - "by appointment to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain"
• Greenall's
• 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
• 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
• Pink 47 London Dry Gin - in a diamond shaped bottle see Pink 47
• Plymouth - first distilled in 1793
• Quintessential
• 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 Ten
• 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

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

• List of cocktails

• Deegan, Grant (Fall 1999). "From the bathtub to the boardroom: gin and its history". MY2K: Martini 2000 1 (1). 
• Dillon, Patrick (2002). The Much-lamented Death of Madam Geneva: The Eighteenth-century Gin Craze. London: Review. ISBN 0-7472-3545-7. 

• 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