Simply put, Gin is a distilled spirit of a minimum 37.5 ABV where the predominant flavour is juniper berry. When we go a little bit deeper, we will quickly find it’s important to separate the different categories of gin. 

Where does gin come from? To find out, we follow the history of the juniper berry. People believed juniper berries to have multiple healing properties, and to help in healing liver and kidney issues. All the way back in 1100 monks were believed to make a tonic concoction with juniper berries. During the Black Plague, plague doctors would wear bird-like masks filled with juniper and other botanicals. It was only logical that several juniper flavoured spirits would also emerge, profiting off the well-doing qualities of the botanical. 

A widespread claim is that gin is actually derived from genever. The dutch were making genever from the 16th century. When they met the British on the battlefield, they introduced them to the spirit. Once back home, the British attempted to recreate it, but forgot to add the maltwine resulting in a different spirit, now known as gin.

 As mentioned before, juniper needs to be predominant but other often used botanicals are cardamom, coriander, citrus peel, angelica and orris root, however the botanicals and proportions of each gin will be different. Some distillers will choose to add all of their botanicals to one batch, others will opt to make several infusions with single botanicals, blending only at the end for consistency and more control over the process.

The legal definition of gin is split into 3 categories. Gin, Distilled Gin and London Gin. For Gin, the alcohol does not require a second distillation. Flavours can be both natural and artificial and both sweeteners and additives are not restricted. Therefore, many people argue this is rather flavoured vodka, and not gin.  

For Distilled gin, you need a neutral spirit as mentioned in our previous video about vodka production. This neutral spirit is then redistilled. The most common methods for this are steep and boil distillation and the vapour infusion method. The first method is the simplest and most traditional method. Botanicals will be steeped from a few hours up until to 48 hours  in the neutral spirit that has been watered down, before undergoing distillation. 

The other distillation method is the vapour distillation. Basically, the flavours are steamed into the gin as the botanicals are placed in a container, while the spirit will pass through it in a vapour state. After this process, water is added to the gin and if desired, additional flavourings or sweeteners are added. It’s also allowed to colour the gin with certain colouring agents. 

For London Gin the rules are more strict. The ethyl alcohol must be from a higher quality, all flavours must be natural and can only be used during distillation, so nothing can be added after the distillation process except for water and a trace amount of sweeter. The spirit that comes off the still must have a minimum ABV of 70% before water is added, and it is not allowed to add colouring agents. 

For years, the gin trend seemed unstoppable. Almost every bar worth their weight would have a gin selection of at least 10 bottles, and often a special Gin & Tonic menu. While still popular, this is now in decline and more bars focus on a few staples rather than a whole inventory. 

But there is still a lot more to discover. 

Within the types of gin we mentioned in this blog, there are a number of different styles that we will be explaining further in upcoming blogs. These styles include variants such as Old Tom Gin, Plymouth Gin, Sloe Gin and also our local original juniper spirit: Genever.