When was the last time you were at a weekend gathering where the drink of the hour was gin? I'm going to venture a guess here and say probably never, right?
The sight of someone opening a bottle of gin in a group of 20-something-year-olds is usually met with a chorus of groans and at least one person complaining, "Oh gross, that stuff tastes like pine trees!"
Having encountered the above reaction more than a few times, I'm pretty sure that most budding young scholars have absolutely no taste for gin. So why bother writing about it?
Because gin has a fascinating history, a deep connection with American drinkers and your inebriant guru just happens to be a die-hard gin fan.
It is well known that alcohol was widely used for "medicinal purposes" during the Middle Ages and even into the 1800s. The concoctions of herbs and animal parts that early doctors and chemists cooked up as medicine were fairly unpalatable, to put it mildly.
To make these potions drinkable, and the patient feel better, physicians began adding alcohol. Of these alcohols, gin was by far the most popular.
Originally the spirits added to the medicinal drinks were just that - straight distilled alcohol. In the 11th century, however, Italian farmers discovered that the berries of the juniper tree were pretty tasty, and began adding them to things that tasted bad, like straight distilled alcohol.
Soon, the Germans were following suit, adding whole juniper berries, crushed berries and oil from the berries to alter the flavor of wine, creating a precursor to brandy.
Over the next few centuries juniper berries developed a reputation of being able to both prevent and treat stomach problems and even cure the bubonic plague.
But in the mid-1600s, the medicinal value of junipers was confirmed by a Dutchman by the name of Franciscus de la Boie at Leiden University in the Netherlands. Professor Frank's discovery not only explained why juniper berries helped the stomach (turns out that in the right quantities they act as a diuretic), but also determined that the strong taste of the berries is mellowed when combined with alcohol. And presto, gin was born. The good professor dubbed his drink "jenevre."
So if gin was invented in Holland, why does it tend to be known as a British spirit? During the 30 Years War, Britain sent troops down to help out the Dutch.
To help them survive the cold, damp climate of the Lowlands, they were told to drink a glass or two of Professor Frank's potion daily, which the soldiers later claimed gave them "Dutch Courage" in battle.
When the Redcoats finally returned to the land of tea and crumpets, they naturally brought back jenevre with them, but by this time they had officially corrupted the name to simply "gin."
By 1720, the residents of London alone were consuming five million gallons of gin per year, with the per capita male consumption around 14 gallons annually. In the 1800s gin made a medicinal comeback among the Brits when it was commonly used to prevent malaria.
On the other side of the pond gin didn't quite make its splash until, ironically, the days of Prohibition. A conversation about Prohibition can't pass without phrases like "bathtub gin" being dropped.
Bathtub gin - doesn't sound too tasty, eh? It's about what it sounds like. Thrifty and shifty Americans, who stood up for their right to drink what they wanted during Prohibition, often cooked up in their bathtubs a throat burning and sometimes blinding (literally) mixture of alcohol.
These crudely made spirits flowed through speakeasies across America and usually into cocktails.
It was in these illicit cocktails, the most popular of which was the martini, that gin captured an entire generation of Americans. By the end of Prohibition, gin had worked its way down American throats and into their culture, literature (gin is a popular spirit in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemmingway) and jokes (the classic Robert Benchley joke about walking in out of a rainstorm: "I must slip out of these wet clothes and into a dry martini").
Today, the United States is the world's largest gin market. Living up to their international reputation as enthusiastic cocktail drinkers, Americans imbibe most of their gin in the form of a cocktail.
Chances are, you've probably had some and liked it (gasp!) without even realizing it was in your mixed drink.
Overall, Americans tend to prefer London dry style gins, a type of gin flavored with the traditional botanical mixture of juniper and herbs but without the added sugar.
As a testament to this, all gin made in the U.S. is London dry style. This is probably because London dry style gins are more flexible and amenable to mixing.
Speaking of cocktails, here are some cocktails featuring gin that may help you to find that special place in your heart (or at least your stomach) for it.
Martini
-1 ounce dry vermouth
-4 ounces gin
Fill a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Pour in the vermouth, stir it a little, and strain out (make sure you keep the ice, though the vermouth is discarded). Pour the gin into the shaker and stir briskly for 10 seconds or so, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass and if you've got an olive, garnish. This mixing method is called the "in and out" martini.
French 75
-2 ounces London dry gin
-1 teaspoon sugar
-1/2 ounce lemon juice
-Brut Champagne
Shake the gin, sugar and lemon juice together in a chilled cocktail shaker with ice. Strain into a Collins glass half-full of ice and then top off with the champagne.
Gin and Tonic
Directions: Don't make this. Seriously, you'll regret it.
But if you're just plain stubborn, here's the instructions anyway: Combine 2 to 3 ounces (depending on your personal taste) of London dry gin with about 6 ounces of tonic water in a glass with a few ice cubes. Garnish with a generous wedge of lime if you've got it.
Orange Blossom
-1.5 ounces of London dry gin
-1.5 ounces of orange juice
Combine the juice and gin in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Shake well, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Alternatively, use a Collins glass with ice for a Gin 'n' Juice, but you'll need more juice for this version.
Contact Timothy Bleasdale at
Timothy.Bleasdale@UConn.edu.
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