When was gin created

Due to ongoing hostilities, the British increased levies on French brandy. The government encouraged the gin craze by reducing taxes on the distillation of spirits and removing the need for licenses to distill spirits. This latter part meant that, unlike those brewing beer, distillers could have a small workshop rather than a pub which would have to provide food and lodgings.

In addition, gin could be created fairly cheaply and easily from homegrown British produce. In some cases, juniper berries were replaced with turpentine, the same stuff used to produce wood varnish or to thin oil-based paints.

The low price of this early gin helped make it a favourite among the poor. Unfortunately though, the English government did not realise that it had unleashed a monster by ushering in the gin craze. In time, gin would become like modern drugs, and just like with drugs, the government went to war on it. A gin nightmare Records show that by around , gin was developing a bit of a negative reputation. Widespread drunkenness became an epidemic, especially in the city of London. It heavily taxed gin and required liquor establishments to carry a special license to sell gin.

Unfortunately, this strategy did not prove effective and only two licenses were taken out. As a result, gin was totally prohibited. Unfortunately, as with alcohol prohibition in the US, this had the opposite effect. Gin became more popular than ever. Pushed underground by government regulation, the illegally distilled gin was often much more alcoholic and likely to cause poisoning.

The print depicts a street filled with rowdy, drunken gin drinkers who look to have particularly miserable lives. Also, informers on gin sellers were often the targets of violence. It was replaced in by a new Gin Act. This was to ensure gin was only sold from reputable premises. Smuggled alcohol was insufficient to satisfy the demand so many opted to make their own alcohol, leading to an era of moonshine and bootlegging.

Cocktails are thought to have existed long before they became fashionable, even getting a mention in an edition of The Balance and Columbian Repository from After a time out of the limelight, gin bounced back with a vengeance.

Classic retro cocktails mixed with premium gins in stylish glasses came back in fashion and a new wave of premium gins took over. Distilled in small scale stills, using high quality ingredients and a lot of care and attention, these select gins are made for the more refined palate.

At the pinnacle of this historical journey is Anno; producing a fantastic selection of spirits including the exquisite Anno Kent Dry Gin. Made in a London Dry Gin style, it is lovingly handcrafted by experienced scientists, incorporating natural Kentish botanicals to create the optimum drinking pleasure.

This was soon followed by a special edition over proof gin, created to mark the 60th birthdays of Anno co-founders, Andy and Norman. As the first decades of the 21st century came to a close, gin and craft distilling showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, industry experts saw no end in sight for the boom. As more dry gins entered the market, people demanded something new and exciting to add to their collections.

Many distilleries chose to bring back traditional pink gins, using flavours from the s and remarket the past. Anno's first pink gin stands out by using three Kentish berries, with hints of cocoa and spices. The beautiful, deep fuchsia pink colour carries over into attractive and delicious cocktails. Anno also worked at the launch with a bee conservation charity, to celebrate the addition of local raw honey and bee pollen to the gin, with donations made for every bottle sold.

Over the years there has been an ongoing push to go beyond navy strength gin, so called in a nod to Royal Navy officers of the early 18th century, who wanted to be sure of the strength of the gin on board their ships.

Gin remained popular with the Brits, notable for its use by soldiers and colonials living in lands prone to malaria infections: gin was excellent at masking the unpleasant, bitter flavor of the antimalarial alkaloid quinine, a necessity for the susceptible foreigners. From the classic martini to the Gimlet to the Tom Collins, the same cocktails that knocked F.

Scott Fitzgerald and his cronies cockeyed are again being shaken and stirred up at taverns everywhere. Other gins are perfectly suited for blending in cocktails. Some legal classifications of gin are defined only as originating from specific geographical areas e. By the 11th century, Italian monks were flavoring crudely distilled spirits with juniper berries.

During the Black Death, this drink was used, although ineffectively, as a remedy. As the science of distillation advanced from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance period, juniper was one of many botanicals employed by virtue of its perfume, flavour, and purported medicinal properties. The Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius is credited with the invention of gin. By the mid 17th century, numerous small Dutch and Flemish distillers some in Amsterdam alone by had popularized the re-distillation of malt spirit or wine with juniper, anise, caraway, coriander, etc.

Gin emerged in England in varying forms as of the early 17th century, and at the time of the Restoration, enjoyed a brief resurgence.

When William III better known as William of Orange , ruler of the Dutch Republic, occupied the British throne with his wife Mary in what has become known as the Glorious Revolution, gin became vastly more popular,particularly in crude, inferior forms, where it was more likely to be flavoured with turpentineas an alternative to juniper.

He made a series of statutes actively encouraging the distillation of English spirits. Anyone could now distil by simply posting a notice in public and just waiting ten days. Gin became 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 throughout England, a period known as the Gin Craze. Because of the relative price of gin, when compared with other drinks available at the same time and in the same geographic location, gin became popular with the poor.

Of the 15, drinking establishments in London, not including coffee shops and drinking chocolate shops, over half were gin shops. Beer maintained a healthy reputation as it was often safer to drink the brewed ale than unclean plain water.

The problem was tackled by introducing The Gin Act at midnight on 29 September , which made gin prohibitively expensive. Samuel Johnson were among those who opposed the Act since they considered it could not be enforced against the will of the common people. They were right. Riots broke out and the law was widely and openly broken. About this time, 11 million gallons of gin were distilled in London, which was over 20 times the figure and has been estimated to be the equivalent of 14 gallons for each adult male.