While rum and vodka battle it out for dominance, gin is quietly reinventing itself with continuous innovation. Its blend of both noticeable and subtle traits is winning over enthusiasts, making significant inroads in the spirits world.
Gin from Geneva
According to existing knowledge, it was Professor Franciscus de la Böe, a professor of medicine at the University of Leyden (hence the famous experiment with the eponymous bottle into which two thin foils are inserted; when a source of static electricity is brought near, the foils repel each other as proof of the mutual repulsion of charge with the same polarity) (1614 – 1672), who distilled fermented rye mash and then redistilled the distillate through herbs and spices, dominated by juniper. The result was a medicine for kidney and urinary bladder diseases and even liver and heart diseases. We assume that juniper was not only an effective medicinal component; its function also lay in masking the not-so-pleasant taste of the rye distillate. Something similar was attempted by Lucas Bols in his Amsterdam establishment in the last quarter of the 16th century and probably by a series of his predecessors.
The Dutch word for juniper is “jeneverbes,” French “genièvre.” It is obvious at first hearing how the juniper distillate got its name. But first came religious and later military earthquakes. The religious one manifested itself in two extreme forms of Protestantism—Lutheranism and Calvinism. The Protestant-oriented Dutch, fighting Catholic Spain throughout the 16th century for their independence, had deep sympathies for both. The word “Geneva” was trendy and had a similar renown as French perfumes, Swiss watches, or Japanese cars today. So through the French name for the Swiss city (Genièvre), it was a short step to Geneva. The rest was taken care of by soldiers of the British king, who fought on the side of the Dutch. They noticed that their continental comrades fortified themselves before an attack with a spirit that tasted of juniper, and the British came up with the term “Dutch courage.” When they then returned to their “splendid isolation,” they brought back as a memento of the fierce battles both samples of the spirit and the linguistic shortcut of the French genièvre, which they first pronounced in English as “genever” and later shortened the expression to “gin.”
Three Distinct Styles
The ancestor of all gins was slightly sweet from barley malt, straw-yellow because it lay for some time in barrels, and thus only partly resembled the products as we know them today. The Dutch still call it jenever and it is so much their national spirit that they have 750 nicknames for it. One of them is “liquid bread.” Which is not inappropriate: their distilleries smell like a bakery when dough is being kneaded.
Dutch Jenever: Dutch Jenever is crafted in two main stages. Initially, a spirit is produced either from molasses or grain using a continuous distillation method. Then, a malt wine made from a mixture of barley malt, rye, and wheat (hence the bread) is distilled in a pot. The proportion in which these intermediates are mixed then determines the character of the jenever. The so-called oude jenever (old; not aged but made in the old way) has a light yellow color, is slightly sweet, and has a strong juniper taste. It must contain at least 15% malt wine, which brings it very close to the sensory properties of English gins from the 18th century. Jonge jenever (young) was developed in the 1950s as a response to customer demand for a lighter spirit that doesn’t resist mixing. It’s colorless, light, quite sweet, and is typically consumed ice cold in its pure form. Korenwijn (sometimes corenwyn) is the Dutch version of Scotch malt whisky. It contains at least 51% malt wine, matures in wooden casks sometimes for many years, acquiring a golden color. However, what distinguishes it from whisky is the way it’s served—chilled in tulip-shaped glasses. It used to be available in pottery containers.
London Dry Gin: London Dry Gin is, in a sense, the exact opposite of jenever. It’s the successor to the sweet gins. Its production was enabled by the invention of the continuous distillation process, which takes place in a device still known as a patent still. Metaphorically speaking, raw grains like barley malt and unmalted grains (corn, rye, wheat) go in one side, and a raw, neutral grain distillate flows out the other. This distillate is somewhat like a prince in a fairy tale, who finds himself at a crossroads of three paths. Either the spirit is filtered and becomes vodka, or it is aged in oak barrels to eventually become grain whisky… or it is flavored and spiced with botanicals, among which juniper is predominant, and it becomes gin. The mix is called botanicals. The quality of gin depends on how the aromas and flavors are infused into the spirit. The cheapest method is compounding, which involves adding essence to the neutral distillate cold. Not great—you won’t find such gins in good establishments. Another method is known as racking. Imagine a bag of botanicals inserted into the top of the distillation kettle, through which alcohol vapors pass. These vapors extract what’s needed, condense, and after further processes, become good, often very good, gin. The third method is steeping, used for instance by Beefeater. The botanical mix is placed at the bottom of the distillation kettle, neutral alcohol is added, and everything is left to macerate for twenty-four hours. Then the kettle is slowly heated, the flavored and spiced alcohol begins to evaporate at 78.3°C, equivalent to 173°F, is led to a condenser, and after returning to liquid form, is processed in the standard way.
Plymouth Gin: Plymouth Gin, which enjoys a protected designation of origin (it must be made in Plymouth, a guarantee even supported by the European Union), differs from the previous ones by an unusually high percentage of root ingredients, giving it an earthy, spicy flavor, while the addition of sweet oranges and cardamom leads to a pleasantly fruity, spicy finish. Some see this gin somewhere halfway between a dry gin and the Dutch jonge jenever.
Creativity in the Gin Industry
Pressure from vodka, rum, and to some extent tequila forced gin producers to start “caring about keeping their place in the sun.” As I say, they took it from the back line, and by the time the other white distillates recovered, gin was breathing down their necks. Among the first to strike in the early 1990s was Bombay Sapphire. It bet on a higher number of botanical types (eleven, starting at four) and an unusual blue bottle color, an idea by Michel Roux. Beefeater introduced a fifty-percent variant, Crown Jewel, suitable for mixing a Martini Cocktail. Tanqueray No. 10 impressed with the use of fresh botanicals (usually dried are used). Blackwoods Vintage Dry Gin went even further: it uses botanicals from a specific year of harvest and even from the first flush, a term well known to tea lovers and just as attractive. Hendrick’s bets on adding cucumber and rose petals. The cucumber isn’t so surprising; I served Gin’N’Tonic with cucumber slices to my guests as early as the mid-eighties. The manufacturer of the Whitley Neill brand was inspired by Africa and included baobab fruits (!) and cape gooseberries among the botanicals.
Indeed, it didn’t stop at baobab!
