GIN

See Also: COCKTAILS; DISEASES Malaria, The Consequences of Six Pints A Day; EGGS & TOMATO AS THE BRIDGE FROM MOTHER's RUIN TO MODERN ISRAEL; GRAIN; WILLIAM HOGARTH; PUBS Gin Palaces; SPIRITS & LIQUEURS; WHISKY

The Gin Craze

Gin was created in The Netherlands during the early 17^thC. English soldiers who fought in the trans-European Thirty Years War (1618-1648) acquired a taste for the spirit. This led to the phrase Dutch courage .

Following the Revolution of 1688, the government sought to promote the consumption of a grain-based alcohol. It hoped, thereby, to lessen demand for brandy which was made principally in France. Sections of the public responded to this development with alacrity. As the early eighteenth-century progressed it became apparent that some portions of British society had become debilitated through their consumption of the spirit.

William Hogarth's Gin Lane print was created to point out the social consequences of the Craze. It is still a well-known to many Britons.

By the mid-18^thC London had 17,000 gin shops. Its 600,000 population were consuming 11m gallons of gin p.a. between them.

Judith Dufour was a Shoreditch silk weaver. She had had an illegitimate daughter Mary, who was cared for by the trustees of Shoreditch Workhouse. In 1734 she secured permission to take the two-year-old child out for the day. She and her boyfriend Sukey murdered the child and then sold her clothes for 1s. 4d. so that they could buy gin.

Location: Central Saint Giles, 1 St Giles High Street, WC2H 8AG. Central St Giles stands on the site of the rookery. (red, blue)

Shoreditch Workhouse, Nuttall Street, N1 5LZ. Over time, the institution evolved into being St Leonard's Hospital.

Website: www.centralsaintgiles.com http://www.homerton.nhs.uk/st-leonards

Gin Types

Gins differ from one another because the neutral alcohol and juniper are flavoured with botanicals (cardoman is not a kosher ingredient).

The Independents

The independent gin distillers revitalised interest in gin by shaking off the spirit's staid image. In 2017 it was reported that the Treasury had received more revenue from gin than beer for the first time.

The British Distillers Alliance

The British Distillers Alliance is the trade body for independent gin distilleries.

Website: www.britishdistillersalliance.com

Portobello Road Gin

Location: 186 Portobello Road, W11 1LA (red, brown)

Website: www.portobelloroadgin.com

Sipsmith

Sipsmith was the first of the independents. Its still, which named Prudence, was located initially in the Hammersmith house that had been the home of Michael Jackson (1942-2007), a renowned beer writer.

Location: 83 Cranbrook Road, Chiswick, W4 2LJ

Website: https://sipsmith.com

Major Brands

Beefeater Gin

In 1820 the Taylor family opened a gin distillery in Cale Street, Chelsea. In 1863 John Taylor sold the business for 400 to James Burroughs, the pharmacist son of a tea merchant. Burroughs created the Beefeater brand. In 1908 the business relocated to Hutton Road, Lambeth. In 1958 it moved to Montford Place, Kennington. In 1982 Whitbread acquired Burroughs. Up until then, the Burroughs family had remained active in the business. In 2005 Pernod Ricard of France bought Beefeater.

Location: 20 Montford Place, SE11 5DE

See Also: THE TOWER OF LONDON Yeoman Warders

Website: www.beefeaterdistillery.com www.beefeatergin.com

Gilbey's

Henry Gilbey was a wine merchant. His brothers Alfred and Walter served in the Crimean War. Upon their return, he advised them to join the trade. They founded Gilbey's in 1856. The business proved successful. In 1867 it acquired The Pantheon on Oxford Street. The bottling operation was moved to Camden. Two years later the Roundhouse, a redundant railway engine turning shed, was acquired as a bonded storage facility.

By 1914 Gilbey's buildings covered twenty acres of Camden Town. The company owned its own train to take cases to the docks for export.

In 1962 Gilbeys merged with United Wine Traders, whose brands included J & B whisky, to form International Distillers & Vintners.

Location: 38-46 Jamestown Road, NW1 7BY. The bottling department. (orange, grey)

Gilbey's Wharf, Camden, NW1 8HB (orange, red)

173 Oxford Street, W1D 2JR. The Pantheon used to occupy the site. From 1867 until 1937 it was the headquarters of Gilbey's. A branch of Marks & Spencer occupies it. (orange, purple)

The Roundhouse, 100 Chalk Farm Road, NW1 8EH (blue, brown)

Gordon's

The Gordon's gin business was founded in Finsbury in 1769 by Alexander Gordon, a Scot. In 1898 the firm merged with Tanqueray Gin. In 1941 Gordon's Goswell Road distillery was destroyed by an aerial bomb. Nine years later the firm opened another one on the site. Gordon's is no longer distilled in Finsbury.

Location: 260-266 Goswell Road, EC1V 7EB (blue, pink)

Website: www.gordonsgin.com

Pimm's

Pimms No. 1 is a gin-based proprietary cocktail. In 1823 James Pimm opened an oyster bar in the City of London. It was customary for molluscs to be washed down with a glass of house cup , an alcoholic drink of liqueurs mixed with fruit extracts. In 1840 he devised Pimm's No. 1.¹

¹. For many years Pimms came in five other brands that had different alcoholic bases: No. 2 - whisky, No. 3 - brandy, No. 4 - rum, No. 5 - rye, and No. 6 - vodka.

In 2003 it was possible to purchase Pimm's No. 6 from specialist retailers.

See Also: OYSTERS & SEAFOOD Oysters

Website: www.anyoneforpimms.com

Respectability

Genever had a whisky-like taste. In 1827 the technique of continuous distilling was devised. It produced a much purer alcohol than had been the case up until then. Its base taste did not need to be masked. It became known as London Dry Gin.

James Pimm and his Pimm's Cups helped to make London Dry Gin acceptable to the middle classes.

In the Great Exhibition of 1851 there was a 27ft. (8.2m.)-tall fountain that Schweppes provided that had tonic water flowing from it.

Gladstone imposed a series of taxes that rendered gin a spirit for the affluent.

Prohibition prompted Harry Craddock, a New York barman, to take a job at the Savoy. There, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon acquired a partiality for the gin-based cocktails that he had made. Her partiality for the spirit may have played a role in making the spirit an acceptable drink for women.

The diabolist Aleister Crowley was an active self-publicist. The fashionability of gin-based cocktails prompted to claim that he had devised the Kubla Khan No. 2. This was supposed to be gin with a dash of laudanum.

By the 1970s gin had become firmly associated with the Gin & Jag belt of affluent, mentally complacent suburbia.

The Three Mills

Three Mills straddles the southern end of the River Lea. It is a tidal mill that is powered entering into and from the Thames. Peter Lefevre came from a Huguenot background and owned a non-guild bakery in Spitalfields. He bought the site in 1728. Up until then, the facility had been devoted to milling corn. He expanded its operations into brewing beer, raw alcohol distilling, and pig-rearing. The business flourished and became one of the largest production facilities around London. It became one of the Navy Victualling Office's principal suppliers.

The Three Mills site was 1966 sold to the Greater London Council.

Location: Three Mill Lane, Bow, E3 3DU

Website: www.housemill.org.uk www.visitleevalley.org.uk/gardens-and-heritage/three-mills-island

David Backhouse 2024