Gin is a distilled, colorless to a pale yellow alcoholic drink usually obtained from a grain mash
that derives its predominant flavor from juniper berries. Juniper berries have been combined with alcohol for medicinal use far back as 70AD when the Greek physician Pedanious Descorides published "De materia medica", a five-volume tone about herbal medicine. In this, he had a detailed description of juniper berries steeped in wine to be used to combat chest ailments. Later, the process of distillation would effect the way Juniper berries combined with alcohol would evolve. The process for the distillation of alcohol originated in the Arab world in 790 AD, when the Arab alchemist, Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan designed a simple "pot still"* which allowed for the effective distillation of many products. Distillation moved to Europe when the Moors invaded and ruled Sicily where Benedictine monks used this process to preserve locally grown medicinal plants, including juniper berries, to be used as medical treatments. In 1055, Benedictine monks in Salerno, Italy published, in their "Compendium Salernito", a recipe for a distilled alcohol spirit, infused with juniper, to be used as a health tonic. In the 16th century, the Dutch began producing juniper containing distilled spirits rather than wine-infused products. They called this spirit "genever". The name of the beverage came from the French name for the juniper berry "genevrier", changed by the Dutch to "genever (Jenever) and, later, shortened by the British to "Gen' or Gena" and, even later, to "Gin" Many attribute genever's origin to Professor Sylvius de Bouve a 16th-century chemist, alchemist and one of the founding professors of Medicine at the University of Leiden, Holland in 1575. He distilled malt wine** spirits which were unpalatable because of the unrefined distilling technique used by "pot distilling". Therefore, he combined the spirits with a distillate of juniper berries, for their alleged medicinal benefit, to mask the flavor. Thus, he produced a cheap "medicinal spirit" having the diuretic properties of the juniper berry oil. This was very different from the clear, juniper berry spirit that we now know as "gin", today. However, there is evidence that spirits flavored with juniper were around many years before de Bove produced his. In fact, genever was brought to the Holland from Belgium because the government of Belgium, concerned that the use of grain for the distilling of Genever would contribute to its continuing national food shortage, banned all distilling. Therefore, many Flemish distillers fled from Belgium to other countries, France, Germany, and Holland. The history of genever in Holland changed farther in 1575, when the Protestant Bolsius family moved from Cologne to Amsterdam and set up a distillery. Amsterdam was independent of the rule of the Catholic Spanish king and a haven for Protestant religious refugees. Bolius changed their name to the more Dutch sounding Bols. While they may not have been the first to make "Genever", they were the first commercial producer of this juniper flavored spirit made for recreational rather than medicinal use. Bols established a relationship with the Dutch East India Company for them to access exotic herbs and spices for their genever and contracted to supply the company's ships with genever, (their sailors being given a daily ration of genever) which, then, was carried throughout the world. The Dutch particularly prospered by their quick association with the Dutch East Indian Trading Company. With the Dutch East India Company using their trading monopoly of the world spice routes to supply the Dutch distillers with new, rare and exotic spices, the distillers began to experiment with these different spices and botanicals, changing their original, simple products in to a more complex spirits, spicy with exotic flavors. The Dutch continued to dominate the genever market around the world until many years later, through a slow process , the British developed a taste for genever. Over the next decades, the British changed the way genever was distilled into what was to become the "Gin" that we all know today. This will be covered in another blog post, "Food History" Gin: Part Two; Britain".
* Pot stills are copper pots from which there is an swan neck arm and an arm that protrudes as a spout. The heated malt wine evaporates in the pot, is cooled and condenses in the swan neck and the resulting distillate is collected via the spout.
**malt wine: a spirit made from corn, wheat and rye.
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