GIN

GIN

 

Credit for discovery of gin goes to Dutch apothecary Francious de la Boe (1617 -1672). Dr. Sylvius as he was known was professor of medicine at the University of Leyden in Holland. He had long recognized that the oils of juniper berries had diuretic values which help flush out the urinary system keeping the bladder and kidneys healthy. So he experimented with his medicinal tonic, mixing grain spirit with juniper berry extract, and a rough and ready therapeutic but in expensive medicine was born. He called it genievre, the French for juniper (French was a polite language of that time ). The Dutch renamed it genever , later it became known as geneva and subsequently the English anglicised to gin.

English soldiers engaged in the 30 year war in the low countries of Europe sought solace in gin, especially before going to battle, and promptly dubbed it “Dutch Courage”. Returning home they encouraged the production of crude spirit. Soon gin became England’s national drink. With the outbreak of war with France in the year 1688, the importation of French spirit ceased. Taxes on English produced spirits were reduced in the reign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) and this encouraged mass production of gin most of it horrible stuff containing vitriolic ingredients. The cheapness and availability of the product led to widespread drunkenness and crime.

Gin gains popularity:

By 1729 recorded consumption soared to 5 million gallons ( 23 million litres) peaking to 11 million gallons ( 50 million litres in 1750. During the period gin was sold openly on street corners and from barrows and stalls. Chemists also sold the dreadful stuff disguised in medicine bottles as “colic water” or “gripe water”. It was estimated at that time that one house in four in London sold gin. The spirit was so inexpensive, that one owner of a “ Strong water shop” in Southwark placed a notice outside which read
Drunk for 1d (a penny)
Dead drunk for 2d
Clean straw for nothing

Hogarth’s famous painting of Gin Lane in 1751 vividly shows the depravity and misery of the gin era. Idleness, vice, and excess led, in many cases to madness and worse.

Brand names began to appear including Cuckold’s Comfort, Royal Poverty, Mother’s Ruin, Last Shift, My Lady’s Eye Water and most popular of all Old Tom. The latter was sold in London by Captain Dudley Bradstreet, a former government informer, whose job was to inform on the infringers of the law. In a rented house, he nailed the sign of a cat to his ground floor window and put a lead pipe under the paw with a funnel attached inside. Passers-by were expected to put money in the cat’s mouth and to ask “Puss give me 2d worth of gin”. The liquid would come pouring out , giving the receiver, a few generous mouthfuls. Could this have been the first coin in the slot machine? It was a huge success, netting the captain 220 pounds to a month, a fortune in those days.

Control of sales of gin:

In 1751, the Gin Act, known as the “Tippling Act” was introduced forbidding grocers, keepers of jail and workhouses from selling gin. Henceforth only people licensed by the Government could sell gin. This had a dramatic influence on the consumption of gin, which dropped from 11 million gallons (50 million litres ) in the early 1750s to below 2 million gallons (9 million litres) by 1760. The temperance movement together with more enlightened legislation regarding reasonable revenue duties on the manufacturers and above all, the higher spirit prices charged to the consumer all contributed to the desired moderation in drinking. Professional distillers entered the and as the product improved and became more refined, three centres of production were established, London, Bristol and Plymouth. Taverns became popular and increasingly more comfortable, leading to the big, brassy but atmospheric “gin palaces”. In 1871 an Act of Parliament tried to reduce the number of these premises by half. Public outrage ensured that the Act was quickly withdrawn.

In 1880s Americans introduced gin based mixed drinks. The 1920s saw the dawn of cocktail era, and many of the classic cocktails were gin based. Gin was considered respectable and was here to stay.

Styles of gin:

Although several different styles of gin have evolved, it is legally differentiated into four categories in the European Union, with two of those four (Distilled Gin and Compound Gin) being officially recognised in the United States.

The official European Union classifications are as follows:

Juniper-Flavoured Spirit Drinks –

This represents the earliest class of gin, which is produced by pot distilling alcoholic grain wash and redistilling it with botanicals to extract the aromatic compounds. Due to the use of pot stills, the alcohol content of the distillate is relatively low (e.g. 68% ABV). This type of gin is sometimes aged in wooden barrels, retains varying degrees of flavour from the grain as a result of its distillation method and may be bottled with a strength as low as 30% ABV. Geneva Gin or Holland Gin is the most prominent gin of this class.[

Distilled gin –

Distilled gin is produced exclusively by redistilling ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin with an initial strength of at least 96% ABV (the azeotrope of water and ethanol) in stills traditionally used for gin, in the presence of juniper berries and of other natural botanicals, provided that the juniper taste is predominant. Gin obtained simply by adding essences or flavourings to ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin is not distilled gin.

London gin –

London gin is obtained exclusively from ethyl alcohol of agricultural origin with a maximum methanol content of 5 grams per hectolitre of 100% ABV, whose flavour is introduced exclusively through the re-distillation in traditional stills of ethyl alcohol in the presence of all the natural plant materials used, the resultant distillate of which contains at least 70% ABV. London gin may not contain added sweetening exceeding 0.1 gram of sugars per litre of the final product, nor colorants, nor any added ingredients other than water. The term London gin may be supplemented by the term "dry".

Gin - Gin or Compound gin is made by simply flavouring neutral spirit with essences and/or other 'natural flavourings' without re-distillation, and is not highly regarded.[3]
The minimum bottled alcoholic strength for gin is 37.5% ABV in the EU, and 40% ABV in the U.S.
Production of gin

 

 

DRY GIN

Originally this style was known as London dry gin, indicating that it was the product of London gin distilleries. Today the name has no geographical significance and the style has been adopted in the united states and many other countries including Spain .The base neutral sprite is made from grain for the American market or from grain or molasses for the British and some European market.
Gin is flavoured sprit; the flavours are extracted from botanicals of which juniper berries are by far the most important and are always present wherever the gin is made .choosing and buying the best botanicals is crucial to quality and consistency, as the final gin must taste exactly the same year in, year out. The botanicals are usually imported, and consist of:
• Juniper berries from the Umbrian hillsides in Italy
• Cardamom from the southern plain of India
• Cinnamon from Ceylon
• Coriander from the Crimea and Morocco
• Angelica from Germany
• Oranges and lemons from Spain and southern Italy
• Cassia bark, Orris roots and liquorice from the finest world markets.
Not all of these botanical will be used. Each distillery has its own secret recipe. That, together with the distilling technique , the quality of the sprit and the quality of the water used in the reduction process, is the reason why brand –name gins taste slightly different from each other.

Making patent still distilled gin

There are four steps in the making of classical dry gin.
1. A low –strength wash is fermented from grain or molasses.
2. The wash is distilled in a patent still to produce an unrefined spirit.
3. This is rectified (re-distilled) in a patent still to eliminate the poisonous higher alcohols. This purification removes all the congeners, resulting
in a high –strength, colourless and flavourless neutral sprit 96% in case of distilled gin and London Dry gin.
4. The neutral sprit is put into a pot still. The flavouring agents are added and re-distilled with flavourings impregnating the final spirit. Only the middle part of distillate is bottled. The heads and tails are always sent back for rectification. Because of the purity of the spirit ,gin does not require ageing .Once bottled, it is immediately ready for drinking.

Making pot still distilled gin:

In the Netherlands, gin is made from a mash of malted barley, corn and rye .There are three steps in making Dutch gin.
1) The combination of grains is fermented into a ‘beer’ or a wash called Moutewijn or Maltwine..
2) The wash is distilled in pot stills and the distillate is re-distilled or rectified two or three time more .It comes out of the still at 68% abv and 76% abv in case of Double gin.
3) The malt wine is now distilled with the botanicals in another pot still. Because it is distilled at a comparatively low proof strength, Dutch gin is very full bodied, rich and heavy flavoured.

Dutch gin has a definite malty aroma and taste; for that reason it is not a good mixer in cocktails, because its flavor would dominate the other ingredients. Ideally, it is drunk very cold and undiluted in small fridge-cooled glasses. Traditionally it is followed by a cold lager chaser. Many Dutch gins are marketed in hand –made stone jars or crocks. Some are matured for a short time in Limousin oak casks before being bottled.
Alternative methods of making gin:

• Some gins are made by adding the botanicals in concentrated form to the neutral spirit.
• The cheapest and poorest of all gins are made by the method known as cold compounding where the neutral spirit is flavoured with essence of synthetic ingredients.

TYPES OF GIN

FRUIT GIN :
Some gins are flavoured with orange or lemon or blackcurrant and have a certain following, especially in the Netherlands.Some are artificially flavoured.

LONDON GIN:
The classic dry gin .the modern dry gins made in Britain and America are very similar.

PLYMOUTH GIN :
More strongly flavoured with juniper berries than most gins and by law, can be made only in the Black Friars Distillery that now owned and distributed by the French liquor giant Pernod Ricard . Pernod Ricard owns this brand since 2008. It is a more assertive and aromatic gin than London gin is standard gin used in the making of a pink gin. Plymouth Original Strength is 41.2% alcohol by volume. There is also a ‘navy strength’ variety available which is 57% alcohol by volume (100° English proof), being the traditional strength demanded by the British Royal Navy as this was the proof that would not prevent gunpowder from igniting, should it be compromised by spilled spirit. A 47% abv (94 U.S. proof) version is available in worldwide duty free markets.

DUTCH GIN : (Jenever / genever)
is the juniper-flavored and strongly alcoholic traditional liquor of the Netherlands and Belgium, from which gin evolved. Traditional jenever is still very popular in the Netherlands and Belgium. European Union regulations specify that only liquor made in these two countries, two French provinces and two German federal states can use the name jenever.
Heavy and pungent to taste, principally because of the high malt con-tent used in its preparation .It has a distinctive but clean flavour, you may see the words Oude (old) and jonge (young) on labels. These terms have nothing to do with age. Oude is the original style usually straw-coloured, aromatic and slightly sweet. Jonge is lighter and drier and is the better-selling modern version.

GERMAN GIN:

Heavy flavoured and somewhat similar to Dutch gin. Steinhager from Westphalia is a good example. It is marketed in stone flagons or crocks.

OLD TOM GIN :

Old Tom Gin (or Tom Gin or Old Tom) is a lightly sweetened Gin popular in 18th-century England that now is rarely available. It is slightly sweeter than London Dry, but slightly drier than Dutch/Holland Gin/Jenever, and is thus sometimes called The Missing Link It is a sweetened London gin made by adding sugar syrup or glycerine to the finished gin. It is the traditional base for Tom Collins cocktail.

SLOE GIN:
A red colour liqueur made by steeping sloes, the fruit of the blackthorn in gin .sugar syrup and almonds are also added. Sloe gin has alcohol content between 15 and 30 percent by volume. The traditional way of making sloe gin is to infuse gin with the berries. Sugar is required to ensure the sloe juices are extracted from the fruit.
Many commercial sloe gins today are made by flavouring less expensive neutral grain spirits, producing a fruit cordial effect, although some manufacturers still use the traditional method.

Some brand names of gin:

United Kingdom:
1. Beefeater
2. Bombay Sapphire
3. Booths
4. Gordon’s
5. Tanqueray
6. Pavilion
7. Boodles British Gin
8. Gilbey’s
9. Heyman’s Old Tom Gin

America:
1. Seagram’s
2. Aviation Gin
3. Cold River Gin
4. New Amsterdam Gin
5. Deaths Door Gin
6. Taaka Gin

Netherlands:
1. Bols
2. De Kuyper
3. Notaris
4. Wenmaker
5. Bokma
6. Hooghoudt
7. No 3 Gin
8. Juidam gin

Indian :
1. Blue Riband
2. Sea Pirate
3. Calcutta Dry Gin
4. Forbes
5. High Society
6. Savoy Club Gin
7. Big Band London Dry Gin