September 22, 2021 • 44 mins
Like many spirits, gin was originally meant for medicinal or alchemical use. But eventually, people started combining juniper with alcohol to make a beverage rather than a medicine. And that's the just the start of gin's history, which gets rather dark at times.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We got
an email from listener Jessica a couple of weeks ago,
and this email set in part quote my email tonight
(00:24):
is to ask something on the lighter side. I was
enjoying my Gin and Tonic after dinner and had the
thought of I wonder if Holly and Tracy ever did
an episode about GIN. So I went to the website
to try and search the archives low and behold. That
doesn't seem to be possible in the current I Heart
Radio format. So is there an episode about Gin in
the archives? How would I go about bringing it up? So,
(00:48):
to answer half the question, the best way to find
old episodes of our podcast at this point is to
google the topic along with the words stuff you Missed
in History Class as part of your search. And I
know that sounds weird, but that's also how I was
doing it with the old website. Other search engines like
Duck Duck Go and Being did not used to work
(01:10):
as well for this, but they have caught up since
the last time I had checked. Nowadays, they're more consistently
bringing up the episode if there is one as the
top search result, although sometimes it's on another platform rather
than our website, which is fine. All goes into the
same bucket of listening. This would not have worked when
(01:33):
Jessica sent this email, though, because at that point there
was no episode on Jin. But there's about to be one.
It's this one recording right now might not be quite
as light as as Jessica was thinking when requesting the topic,
though there's always surprise horror in history. So Jin as
(01:57):
we know it today is a distilled alcoholic bevery edge,
made from grain and flavored with botanicals, particularly juniper berries.
Juniper is an evergreen shrub in the cypress family, and
they're at least sixty different juniper species growing all over
the Northern hemisphere. Those berries are not what you would
think of like berry you can pick from a tree
(02:18):
in nausch On. They are actually small, fleshy cones rather
than any kind of juicy looking delicious berry. Yeah, column berries,
but they're really tiny little cones. Every part of the
juniper plant has been used for medicinal and religious and
culinary purposes. For pretty much all of recorded history, anywhere
(02:41):
it grows or anywhere it's it's been in reasonable trading distance.
Starts with ancient Egyptian texts that describe the use of
juniper and mummification recipes. John Burgundy's Plague Treatise, which is
written in thirteen sixty five, recommends burning juniper branches to
drive bad and disease from the home. Juniper was also
(03:03):
one of the fragrant substances that was stuffed up into
the beaks of plague doctor masks in the seventeenth century.
The first alcohols made with juniper were also meant for
medicinal or alchemical use. This is something it shares with
the history of vodkast same thing. Most of the most
and most uh Some of the earliest mentions of this
(03:25):
date back to the middle of the eleventh century in
the writing of Benedictine monks living in Salerno, Italy, as
well as the nearby medical school known as Scola Medicina Solana.
Medical texts from this period described a tonic that's made
from distilled wine infused with juniper berries. Eventually, people started
combining juniper with alcohol to make a beverage rather than
(03:48):
a medicine or an alchemical potion. In Finland, suck Ti,
which as like an ale like beer that's flavored with
juniper instead of hops, has been around since about the
twelfth century, and central Europe Borovichka, also called juniper brandy,
has been made since at least the fifteenth century. Today
(04:09):
it's popular in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and then
there are similar beverages and other Slavic countries as well
that I'll have this juniper flavor to them. But the
beverage that comes up most often as a predecessor to
jin is the Dutch spirit univ That's a term that
comes from the Dutch word for juniper. As is the
(04:29):
case with most food origin stories, the specifics on who
first created univor are not totally clear. The credit often
goes to chemist and physician Francisca Silva's also known as
Francois de la Boi or Sylvia's de la Boi. However,
though Francisca Sylvia's was born in sixteen fourteen, and some
(04:50):
of the accounts of the creation of Your Neighbor put
this development in fifteen seventy two, so well before his birth,
time traveler Yes it is possible that people have conflated
two different people who had similar names, both of whom
worked at the University of Leiden. One was an apothecary
(05:12):
named Silvius Debouve in the sixteenth century, and the other
was Francisca Silvius, who was a professor of medicine in
the seventeenth century. It is just as likely, though, that
no one person can get the soul credit for creating
this drink regardless. Dutch distiller Lucas Bulls was established in
(05:32):
fifteen seventy five and describes itself as the world's oldest
distilled spirits brand. By six two, Bulls was supplying spirits
to the Dutch East India Company, known as the v
o C as it's abbreviated from Dutch. By the middle
of the seventeenth century, v O C sailors were getting
your neighbor in their rations, and soon the v O
(05:53):
C was carrying your neighbor anywhere the Dutch were trading,
including to what is now Indonesia. When the Dutch established
the settlement of New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan,
they introduced your neighbor to North America as well. Today,
your neighbor is sometimes known as Hollands and some people
call it Dutch gin, but it's really its own distinct beverage.
(06:17):
Gin has evolved over time, which we will get to,
but it generally starts with a neutral spirit made from
a grain which is flavored with botanicals including juniper But
your Neighbor typically goes through a two or even three
step process. It starts with a fermented grain mash which
is distilled into a malt wine, and then that is
(06:38):
distilled again with botanicals including juniper berries, and the result
of this process is a clear, malted grain based spirit.
It's typically consumed by itself from a tulip shaped glass.
I In my experience, most people mix gin with other
(06:59):
stuff most of the time. That's not so much the
case with the Neighbor. There's also an official appellasion door
Gene coltrole or an AOC for your Neighbor. Legally true,
your Neighbor can only be made in Holland, Belgium and
very specific regions of France and Germany. While you Neighbor
(07:19):
and Jin are distinctly different drinks, there was probably a
progression from Dutch neighbor to British jin You neighbor was
introduced into Britain sometime during the seventeenth century, and there
are several possibilities for exactly when. One is that during
the Anglo Dutch Wars, which started in sixteen fifty two,
it made its way. Another is after the restoration of
(07:42):
Charles the Second, he spent some time in the Hague
before returning to the British throne in sixteen sixty. Probably
the most common explanation is that you Neiver's popularity in
Britain really started with the Glorious Revolution and King James
the Second was deposed and succeeded by William the Third,
also known as William of Orange stadholder of the Netherlands.
(08:05):
William ruled with his wife Mary, who was James's daughter.
Regardless of exactly when or how it was introduced, after
Niavor made its way into Britain, English speakers morphed its
name into Geneva or Jennifer, and then shortened that to
jin Yeah, because the neighbor has spelled g e n
e v er, so if you're reading it on a
(08:28):
page as an English speaker, it looks like it's Jennifer.
So since common juniper as native to the UK. There
were already culinary and medicinal uses for it well before
univor was introduced, and in written accounts from the seventeenth century,
it's not always totally clear exactly what people are describing,
(08:51):
whether it's Dutch neighbor or a local British beverage or
a medicinal preparation made from alcohol and juniper. For example,
past podcast subjects Samuel Peeps described feeling unwell in his
diary entry from October fourth, sixteen sixty three. Peeps was
chronically ill. He had recurring bladder stones, and over the
(09:13):
next few days his diary entries describe him as being
in pain and constipated and experiencing painful urination. Then, on
October tenth, he writes about making himself go into his
office where he met with Sir John Men's, Comptroller of
the Navy, and Sir William Batten, Surveyor of the Navy.
He said of their conversation quote, Sir je Men's and
(09:36):
Sir W. Batten did advise me to take some juniper water,
and Sir W. Batton sent to his lady for some
for me strong water made of juniper. Well, Peeps does
describe starting to feel better over the next couple of days.
He had also tried some other treatments. So it's not
a clear whether this strong water made of juniper, whether
(09:57):
it was your neighbor or gin or or something else,
was effective or not. So while there's some uncertainty and
some overlap here, jin definitely became a lot more popular
in Britain during William and Mary's reign. And it was
not just because William was Dutch and would have brought
a Dutch influence to things. It's also because of things
(10:20):
like wars and laws, and we'll get to that after
a sponsor break. Soon after William and Mary came to
the throne of the United Kingdom, they declared war on France.
(10:40):
This was part of the Nine Years War which started
in six and then Parliament passed the Trade with France
Act of that band all trade with France and that
put an end to all of the imports of French
wine and French brandy. In sixteen ninety, Parliament pass the
(11:00):
Act for Encouraging the Distilling of Brandy and Spirits from Corn,
the set of duty of eight shillings per gallon on
quote strong waters brandy Aqua vita and spirits from the
Channel Islands, and it decreed that any liquors found to
have been grown or manufactured in French territory would be destroyed.
(11:22):
At this point, the British beer industry was regulated and taxed,
but you didn't need a license to sell jim, so
this law meant that locally made spirits distilled from green
were the cheapest alcoholic beverage available. It also helped create
more demand for British grown grain, since pretty much every
grain was lumped into the category of corn, so this
(11:44):
law helped boost the price of grain to the benefit
of British landowners by encouraging people to use it to
make alcohol. The UK also already had its own distilling
guild that was the Worshipful Company of Distillers STA, published
in sixteen thirty eight. The guild initially had a monopoly
on distilling in the area around London, and the number
(12:08):
of distilleries in the Kingdom really grew in the last
half of the seventeenth century thanks to its influence. So
by the time this law was passed encouraging the distilling
of brandy and spirits from corn, the UK was pretty
ready for it. These spirits were really all over the
place in terms of their quality and ingredients and what
(12:30):
type of alcohol we would actually describe them as today.
But by the early eighteenth century, one in particular was
becoming prominent, and that was Jin. The first written use
of the word Jin in the G I N form
in English was in seventeen thirteen from the Infernal Congress
or News from Below, being a letter from Dick Estcourt,
(12:52):
the late famous comedian, to the Spectator. It read, quote,
being fatigued with Touchen's impudence, I took a turn in
the Prato and drunk a dram of royal gin with
the Duchess of Portsmouth, who has a little brandy shop here.
Jen was also really quickly becoming notorious. In seventeen fourteen,
(13:12):
Bernard Mandeville published The Fable of the Bees or Private
Vices Public Benefits. In this book, he made the argument
that various vices, many of which were widely criticized and
even condemned, actually contributed to some sort of public good.
So here's how Mandeville described Jin. Quote nothing is more destructive,
(13:35):
either in regard to the health or the vigilance and
industry of the poor than the infamous liquor, the name
of which derived from Juniper and Dutch, is now by
frequent use, and the laconic spirit of the nation. From
a word of meddling length shrunk into a monosyllable, intoxicating
gin that charms the unactive, the desperate, and the crazy
(13:57):
of either sex, and makes the starving lot hold his
rags and nakedness with stupid indolence or banter, both in
senseless laughter and more insipid jest. It is a fiery
lake that sets the brain in flame, burns up the entrols,
and scorches every part within, and at the same time
(14:17):
a leaf of oblivion in which the wretch immersed drowns
in most pinching cares and with his reason all anxious
reflections on brats that cry for food, hard winters, frosts,
and horrid empty home. I just wanted to shout out
to Holly because this was written in the seventeen hundreds
(14:38):
and and it was full of long essays that looked
like F's and I missed one of the long essays
when I was getting it into here. Holly corrected it
on the fly. I did not have to go. It
does not say the fame time, it should in fact
say the same time. Uh I love things with long
(15:00):
esses in them, but sometimes they can be challenging. Uh so.
Vandeville went on to blame Gin for making men quarrelsome
and violent and even causing murders, for breaking down people's constitutions,
and for causing consumption and sudden death. But he says
these are rare compared to quote loss of appetite, fevers,
(15:22):
black and yellow jaundice, convulsions, stone and gravel, drops, ease,
and luco phlegmasies. He also goes on at very great
length about all the squalid conditions and areas that are
home to establishments that sell spirits, and to all the
social and economic ills that those establishments cause. But Mandeville
(15:47):
then goes on to say, quote those who can enlarge
their view and will give themselves the leisure of gazing
on the prospect of concatenated events may in a hundred
places see good spring up and pollulate from evil, as
naturally as chickens do from eggs. The money that arises
from the duties upon malt is a considerable part of
(16:08):
the national revenue, and should no spirits be distilled from it.
The public treasure would prodigiously suffer on that head. But
if we would set in a true light the many
advantages and large catalog of solid blessings that accrue from
and are owing to the evil I treat off, we
are to consider the rents that are received, the ground
(16:29):
that is tilled, the tools that are made, the cattle
that are employed, and above all the multitude of poor
that are maintained by the variety of labor required in husbandry,
in malting, in carriage, and distillation. Before we can have
that product of malt, which we call low wines, and
is but the beginning from which the various spirits are
(16:51):
afterwards to be made. In other words, sure poor people
were getting drunk and sometimes dying because of gin, but
look at how much it was helping the economy. Needless
to say, this book and the argument that Mandeville was
making in it were highly controversial. Mandeville's description of gin
(17:14):
as destructive was not controversial among the British elite, though
in the early eighteenth century it was increasingly taken for
granted that jin was uniquely dangerous and was leading to
all kinds of problems. By about seventeen twenty, this had
blossomed into a full on moral panic described as the
gin craze or sometimes you'll see it as the gin epidemic,
(17:36):
particularly in big cities like London, Portsmouth and Bristol. For
about three decades, there was a huge focus on gin
consumption and the damage it was purportedly doing and how
they might stop it. Then to be cleared, jin did
become a lot more popular in these years, and there
was some real damage involved. Alcohol consumption carried the same
(17:59):
health risks and eighteenth century that it does today. Over
consumption and abuse still impacted people's lives and livelihoods. It
also wasn't uncommon for liquor to be adulterated with other substances,
including things like sulfur, as acid and turpentine, and there
weren't really any age restrictions on drinking, so people of
(18:21):
any age drank really at any time of the day,
including parents using gin and other liquors to try to
soothe their babies. Excessive drinking, and especially drinking too much
gin in particular, also became associated with violence and crime.
Records from London Central Criminal Court a K the Old
(18:41):
Bailey include repeated references to jin. For example, a William Burrows,
who was indicted for assault in seventeen thirty one, was
described as having fallen quote into that dreadful society of
gin drinkers, whores, thieves, housebreakers, street robbers, pickpockets, and the
whole train of the most notable blackguards in and about London.
(19:04):
James Baker, who was convicted of robberies in seventeen thirty three,
was described as quote one of them who frequented gin shops.
Perhaps most horrifyingly, in seventeen thirty four, Judath Defour was
convicted of murder after two witnesses testified that she had
stripped her daughter Mary naked and left her in a field,
(19:25):
and sold the baby's clothes to buy jim at the
same time. Though most of the focus here, most of
the concern was targeted at poor and working class people
and what they were doing with their time and money.
In seventeen seven, Daniel Defoe wrote about the after effects
of the prohibition of trade with France and this increase
(19:47):
in English distilling. He said, quote we find since these
prohibitions very great quantities of brandy run by the arts
of clandestine traders. But even that quantity is now much
abated except in the north parts and the west parts,
since the distillers have found out a way to hit
the palette of the poor by their new fashioned compound
(20:11):
waters called geneva, so that the common people seem not
to value the French brandy as usual and even not
to desire it. Efforts to curtail drinking, and especially gin drinking,
were really rooted in upper class ideas of appropriate behavior
and social standards and on quote, cleaning up the moral
(20:32):
lives of the poor, rather than addressing any of the
social or economic factors that might contribute to excessive drinking. Soon,
gin was perceived as the cause of poverty and immorality,
and it became symbolic of pretty much every vice and
social ill. To combat all of this, Parliament passed a
series of Gin Acts starting in seventeen twenty nine, and
(20:55):
these used a range of strategies, including taxes and fines
and licensing fees and other regulations to try to discourage
gin sales and consumption. For example, in seventeen thirty three,
it became illegal to sell spirits quote about the streets,
in any wheelbarrow or upon the water in any ship,
(21:16):
boat or vessel. Several versions of the Gin Act encouraged
people to inform on others for illegally selling spirits. This
was especially true after the passage of the seventeen thirty
six Act, which did more to stoke illicit gin sales
than to discourage people from doing it. Informers were paid
half of the ten pound fine that was collected for
(21:37):
violating the Act. At some point, this was lucrative enough
that people basically became professional informers, often working in groups
of two or three so they could back up each
other's accounts when they reported someone's illicit business. Professional informers
had to be strategic, though, People who couldn't afford to
pay the fine were sentenced to two months of hard
(21:58):
labor instead, and that meant that the informers would get nothing.
Most informers also avoided reporting people from their own neighborhoods,
since they faced retaliation and sometimes even physical violence, for
getting local drinking establishments shut down. Their reputations in their
own communities also weren't likely to recover if they reported
(22:20):
somebody who knew and trusted them, but there was still
a lot of retaliation. A law passed in seventeen thirty
eight set a penalty of seven years transportation to the
North American colonies for attacking an informer. By that point,
there had been at least twelve thousand prosecutions for selling
gin without a license, and these laws disproportionately affected women.
(22:44):
Newly established gin houses were often more welcoming to women
than pubs that sold beer were, especially when it came
to single, working class women. So even though women weren't
necessarily drinking more gin than men were, they were more
visible than they had been. This was kind of new,
so soon the drink was being more associated with women.
(23:05):
Jen became known by nicknames like Ladies Delight, Mother Geneva,
and Mother Jin. But at the same time, while only
about a third of Britain's unlicensed gin sellers were women,
at least half the people who faced charges for violating
the gen X were women. Women also made up as
much as three fourths of the people who were imprisoned
(23:29):
because they could not afford to pay the fine. The
gen Ax were deeply unpopular among poor and working class people,
leading to riots in seventeen thirty seven. Trying to enforce
the law was also expensive, and in the seventeen forties
the Kingdom needed to put more money toward the War
of the Austrian Succession. This was also happening in parallel
(23:50):
with the Jacobite uprisings that we have covered on the
show before, and there were fears that the Jacobites were
stirring up discontent among working class people, using all of
this furor over gin as a cover. On top of
all these factors and shifts in the government's priorities, two
of the biggest proponents of the Gin Acts died in
(24:11):
the late seventeen thirties. One was Sir Joseph Checkal, Master
of the Rolls, and the other was Edward Parker, who
had run a professional informing ring that had accused at
least fifteen hundred people of illegal activity. So, after all this,
the wars and the Jacobites and the people dying, in
seventeen forty three, Parliament repealed the act that had been
(24:35):
passed in seventeen thirty six and replaced it with one
that was more focused on regulating the industry that on
trying to curtail it. So licenses became more affordable and
the unlicensed gin trade started to wane. The war may
have contributed to a decline in the illicit liquor trade
as well. Some people who had been supporting themselves that
(24:57):
way instead found work related to the war. A new
style of beer was also introduced around this time. That
would be porter, which started to become more popular and
more affordable to working class people. The Gin Act of
seventeen fifty one built on the one that had been
passed in seventeen forty three. It increased the duty on
(25:18):
gin and set a licensing fee of two pounds a year,
and mandated that only respectable people were eligible for a
license to sell spirits. Jin's popularity continued to wane in
the UK after this, dropping from an estimated eight point
five million gallons consumed in seventeen fifty one to five
(25:40):
point nine million just a year later. You think of
millions of gallons, it sounds like so much, but that's
a huge drop off. It's it's a you know, spread
out among a lot of people also drinking a lot.
Like a lot of people drinking a lot for sure. Uh.
There had been a huge number of pamphlets, sermons, works
(26:02):
of art and the like during the Gin craze, and ironically,
the one that's probably the most well known came out
at the very end of this That was jin Lane
by past podcast subject William Hogarth. And this was an
engraving showing all of the evils of Gin, among other things,
an extremely emaciated man with a cup and bottle in
(26:22):
his hands, an inebriated woman whose child is falling over
the railing of the stairs that she's sitting on, and
a crowd of people having a melee in the background.
It has the caption jin cursed fiend with fury, fraud
makes human race a prey. It enters by a deadly
draft and steals our life away, virtue and truth. Driven
(26:44):
to despair, its rage compels to fly, but cherishes with
hellish care, theft, murder, perjury, damned cup that on the vitals,
praise that liquid fire contains, which madness to the heart
conveys and rolls it through the veins. O Garth put
out his engraving Beer Street as a companion to this one.
(27:07):
This is a far more pleasant scene of people mostly
just going about their lives and business. It's caption reads
quote beer happy produce of our aisle con sinu e strength,
impart and wearied with fatigue and toil, can cheer each
manly heart labor and art upheld by the successfully advanced.
(27:29):
We quoth thy balmy juice with glee and water, leave
to France genius of health, thy grateful taste rivals the
cup of Jove when warms each English generous breast with
liberty and love, Oh William hogarth Beer good, Jin bad.
(27:50):
In the words of William Hogarth, I also read some
speculation that the reason that he put this out like
really at the end of all this, when Jim's popularity
was dropping really quickly, was that, thanks to the ends
of earlier wars, there were suddenly a lot of unemployed
sailors and others about, and that that made uh people
(28:10):
worried once again about the specter of gin, Oh William
hogarth Um. Obviously this was not the end of gin.
So we're going to talk about what happened in Jin's
history a little bit more after we pause for a
sponsor break. In eighteenth century Britain, the drink that people
(28:37):
were consuming and describing as gin was really all over
the place in terms of what grain it was made
of and how it was flavored, what it tasted like,
whether it was adulterated with anything dangerous. Most of it
was made in batches in pot stills, so there could
even be a huge variation in quality from batch to batch,
(28:59):
even when those batches were all made by the same distiller.
In general, though, a lot of the flavorings that were
added into it who were there to try to improve
the taste of some generally poor quality alcohol. One of
those flavorings was sugar, so the final beverage was sweeter
than jin typically is today most of the time. And
(29:22):
this sweeter, rougher jin became known as Old Tom, and
there are several stories about where that name came from.
One is that when the Gin Acts were in effect,
Captain Dudley Bradstreet rented a house for the purpose of
illicitly selling gin. He put a picture of an Old
Tom cat on the outside, and customers would put their
money in a drawer built into the wall and whisper
(29:44):
a code word, and then their gin would be dispensed
through a lead pipe that ran out through the wall
from the inside of the house to the outside, and
the customer would catch it in a cup. Well. I
love this story. It may be apocryphal, and Old Tom
may just be a weird name that cropped up. There
(30:04):
are some places that still make old Tom gin as
like a craft gin experience. Even though gin consumption dropped
off pretty quickly after seventeen fifty one, the beverage did
not go away entirely. Later on, in the eighteen twenties,
a grain surplus combined with a reduction in the duties
that were levied on spirits, and jin started to surge
(30:27):
in popularity again. A new kind of drinking establishment also
evolved around this time. That was the Gin Palace, which
tended to be a brightly lit and heavily decorated space
where people came to drink. In the mid eighteen twenties,
thanks to all this jin consumption in Britain roughly doubled.
(30:49):
This stoked a lot of the same concerns that had
been part of the gin craze that happened about a
hundred years earlier. In an eighteen thirty The Lancet published
an article describing what they called gin liver. That's what
we would know as cerrosis today. But efforts to reduce
gin consumption in the early nineteenth century were focused less
on making gin more expensive and more regulated, and more
(31:11):
on making beer cheaper. This didn't have quite the intended
effect though public houses serving beer became more popular among
the working class, while more middle class people started to
prefer gin served in a gin palace. Can't didn't really
reduce the popularity of gin very much. It just sort
of flipped which social classes preferred which drink. The process
(31:34):
of making gin also changed somewhat around this time. The
column still was developed. Starting around eighteen twenty two, Irish
distiller and NEAs Coffee refined this design and was awarded
for a patent on his improved version in eighteen thirty.
Unlike pots stills, which required distillers to make their wares
(31:57):
in small batches, the columns still had run continually, and
this made the final product a lot more consistent with
generally better quality. Again, there are still plenty of distillers
who work in small batches using pot stills today, but
generally using more sophisticated techniques and more consistency than in
(32:18):
the eighteenth century. The development of the column still also
led to a new style of gin, London Dry, named
for being made in London and for not being sweetened.
Some of the distillers that were established around this time
still exists today. For example, Charles tanker Ay established a
distillery in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London. In eighteen thirty
(32:39):
Plymouth gin was evolving as well, sweeter and stronger than
London dry, and available in a more potent navy strength
for provisioning to the Royal Navy. There were still a
lot of concerns about all the social issues associated with drinking,
and specifically with drinking gin, though Charles Dickens started right
(33:00):
about this and his sketches by Bass in eighteen thirty six.
Unlike earlier writers from back in the seventeen hundreds, though
Dickens didn't really frame jin as the cause of poverty.
He was fond of jin himself, and instead he described
over consumption and alcohol abuse as effects of poverty and
(33:22):
poor living conditions. Quote Jim, Drinking is a great vice
in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater And
until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade
a half famished wretch not to seek relief in the
temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which
divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread
(33:44):
for each Gin shops will increase in number and splendor,
just like William Hogarth had depicted jin Lane in the
eighteenth century. Other artists depicted the dangers of alcohol in
the nineteenth century, including George Cruikshank, who is sometimes called
the modern Hogarths. Krukshanks satirical The Gin Shop shows a
(34:05):
whole inebriated family in the shop, including children standing in
a trap with death off to one side, and a
cask of old tom shaped like a coffin. Unlike the
eighteenth century movement that had mostly focused on spirits, the
temperance movement that arose in the UK in the nineteenth
century focused on the dangers of all alcohols, including beer.
(34:28):
More London dry distillers were established in the middle of
the nineteenth century, including Gilbie's in eighteen fifty seven and
Beef Eater in eighteen sixty three. Distillers also started experimenting
with different blends of botanicals in addition to the junipers,
to give their products different flavor profiles. All kinds of
(34:50):
gin based cocktails and mixed drinks evolved during the nineteenth century.
Bidders were popularized in the UK around this time, particularly
pay Shows and Angus Your a Biters Plymouth gin flavored
with angister a biters became known as pink gin, which
was both a popular beverage and a treatment to soothe
the stomach and prevent seasickness. Here in the US you
(35:12):
can buy various pink gins in bottles, some of which
are this and some of which are not or pink
for some other reason. Another nineteenth century innovation was the gimlet,
combining gin and lime, and this probably arose from the
use of lime juice to prevent scurvy amongst sailors. Sometimes
(35:34):
this name is attributed to Sir Thomas Gimlets, the surgeon
General of the Navy, although another idea is that it
was named for the tool that was used to drill
holes in the barrels that these liquids were stored in.
That tool is also called a gimlet. The martini was
introduced by about eighteen seventy, combining gin, vermouth, and garnish.
(35:56):
This is also about when the gin and tonic made
its debut. Chinchona bark has its own long long history
as the source of medicine to treat recurring fevers. Quinine
comes from Cinchona bark, and the British Royal Navy relied
on it to treat malaria. Quinine was unpleasant to consume,
though in eighteen seventy Schwepps introduced what it called Indian
(36:20):
tonic water that was carbonated water infused with quinine. John
Jacob Schwepp was not the first person to carbonate water,
and Schwepps was not the first company to combine carbonated
water and quinine. But Schwepps was the first company to
produce carbonated water at an industrial scale and also to
(36:42):
market this quinine tonic as a malaria preventative. Mixing tonic
water with gin and serving that over ice became a
popular way for people in tropical areas to get their
doses of quinine. Tonic water, as it is produced today,
has far less quinine in it does not really prevent
(37:04):
our treat malaria at the currents proportions. Please do not
count on on these things as medicine for yourself. Uh.
This brings us to Jin's connections to colonialism. Anywhere the
British Empire established a trade or started a colony, it
introduced gin or made gin more widely available there than
(37:25):
it had been before. Britain and other European powers also
traded liquor for enslaved Africans during the Transatlantic slave trade.
Overwhelmingly the people already living in these areas already had
their own fermenting methods, and unless religious prohibitions on alcohol
were in place, some of them were used to make beers, wines,
or other alcoholic beverages in addition to being used to
(37:47):
preserve foods. But stronger distilled spirits were often a new innovation,
and this led to some of the same societal and
health issues that Britain had already witten Nets starting in
the eighteenth century, combined with the same paternalistic attitudes about
how working or poorer people were spending their time, but
(38:09):
now a lot of those attitudes were also threaded through
with racism. Colonial officials often had a lot of concerns
as local people developed their own distilling practices and lumped
everything that they were making under the umbrella of gin,
regardless of what was actually being used. So as one
(38:32):
example in Nigeria, British officials described locally made distilled palm
wine as gin, even though did not have the ingredients
that were commonly used to make gin. So we haven't
really talked about the United States at all, Although jin
did exist in the US, Americans tended to prefer both
(38:54):
beer and whiskey to gin, but when prohibition went into
effect in nineteen twenty, ilicit gin became a bit more popular.
Jin was easier to make than many other spirits since
it did not need to be aged, and since the
juniper could help disguise the flavor of roughly made alcohol.
The terms radiator gin and bathtub gin arose during this time,
(39:17):
although bathtub gin was probably meant to describe the dirtiness
of the bootleg gin rather than it actually being made
in a bathtub. Yeah, the idea of it really being
made in bathtubs sort of came about in film depictions
of prohibition from later on, rather than how people using it.
We're using it at the time. In the early twentieth century,
(39:39):
jin's popularity started to wane in a lot of the world.
When it came to distilled spirits and their popularity, Jin
was really overtaken by vodka, but especially in the United States,
attitudes towards drinking also started to shift. Alcoholics Anonymous was
established in Nive, and by nineteen fifty the organization had
(40:01):
grown large enough to hold its first international convention. The
popularity of the quote three martini lunch rose and fell
over the course of the mid twentieth century, with Jimmy
Carter criticizing that practice when he ran for president in
ninety six. Over time, Jin and drinks made with Jin
(40:22):
started to be seen as pretty passe. However, again, if
you live in the modern world, you know jim didn't
go away. Uh, there's really been a resurgence in gin
and its popularity more recently. Some people mark jin's resurgence
as starting with the introduction of Bombay sapphire in others
(40:42):
credit Scottish distillers William Grant and Sons, which introduced Hendrix Jin,
and over the last couple of decades there's been a
big focus on small batch craft distillers experimenting with botanical
blends to come up with their own flavorings and seasonal
gin's in the like. In the global gin market was
(41:02):
valued at fourteen point oh three billion dollars, with European
consumers making up about half of that market share. Yes,
Jin a lot of variety in gin nowadays. If if
we did not mention your favorite gin or your favorite
Jin drink, UH, don't feel personally left out. I haven't
(41:24):
mentioned my favorite ones either. Do you have listener mail
that may or may not involve Jim. I do. I
do have listener mail. Even though we started off this
episode with mail, We're gonna read some more mail. This
is from Page Page Route. Dear Tracy and Holly. I've
been an avid listener of your podcast since February, and
(41:44):
I've sent you a few emails expressing my thanks. This
is the first time I've had something relevant to contribute.
I was flipping through my National Geographic magazine the other
day and came across an article titled Eating the Problem
about chefs turning invasive species into food. To my delight,
kudzoo was included. I immediately went back and listened to
(42:04):
your episode about the vine that ate the South. In
recent years, kad zoo has been served pickled, fried, dried, fermented,
and even as a pesto. This is not the only
invasive species getting the restaurant treatment. Chefs have also turned
to cooking up lion fish, feral hogs, and Asian carp
Although eating these creatures will not completely eradicate them, it
(42:26):
is a way to reduce their land cover. Additionally, you
mentioned Japanese not weed in your episode as well, which
we have several patches of near our house. Every time
we pass them, my mom, who was a gardener, remarks
on how hard it is to kill and how it
is spreading like crazy. Hopefully not weed will not end
up taking over the north like Kudzo did the South,
but it is quite difficult to get rid of. Thank
(42:49):
you so much for your wonderful podcast. I look forward
to my bus rides each day as they give me
a chance to listen to your latest episode. I'm including
a picture of my pug, Ruthy as well. She loves
the show almost as much as I do. You keep
up with the wonderful work, best Page. Ruthie is such
a cute pug. Look at this um. I just liked
(43:14):
this email this morning, and also making kunzy pesto reminded
me of how uh we get most of our vegetables
from our farmer's market, and the farm that we get
our carrots from sells the carrots with all their tops
still attached, and we have made carrot top pesto a
bunch of times. It's been quite yummy. So thanks Page
(43:34):
for this note. If you'd like to send us an
email about this or any other podcasts for a history
podcast at i heart radio dot com and we're all
over social media at missed in History. That's where you'll
find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. And you can
subscribe to our show on I heart radio app and
anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you
(44:00):
Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We got
an email from listener Jessica a couple of weeks ago,
and this email set in part quote my email tonight
(00:24):
is to ask something on the lighter side. I was
enjoying my Gin and Tonic after dinner and had the
thought of I wonder if Holly and Tracy ever did
an episode about GIN. So I went to the website
to try and search the archives low and behold. That
doesn't seem to be possible in the current I Heart
Radio format. So is there an episode about Gin in
the archives? How would I go about bringing it up? So,
(00:48):
to answer half the question, the best way to find
old episodes of our podcast at this point is to
google the topic along with the words stuff you Missed
in History Class as part of your search. And I
know that sounds weird, but that's also how I was
doing it with the old website. Other search engines like
Duck Duck Go and Being did not used to work
(01:10):
as well for this, but they have caught up since
the last time I had checked. Nowadays, they're more consistently
bringing up the episode if there is one as the
top search result, although sometimes it's on another platform rather
than our website, which is fine. All goes into the
same bucket of listening. This would not have worked when
(01:33):
Jessica sent this email, though, because at that point there
was no episode on Jin. But there's about to be one.
It's this one recording right now might not be quite
as light as as Jessica was thinking when requesting the topic,
though there's always surprise horror in history. So Jin as
(01:57):
we know it today is a distilled alcoholic bevery edge,
made from grain and flavored with botanicals, particularly juniper berries.
Juniper is an evergreen shrub in the cypress family, and
they're at least sixty different juniper species growing all over
the Northern hemisphere. Those berries are not what you would
think of like berry you can pick from a tree
(02:18):
in nausch On. They are actually small, fleshy cones rather
than any kind of juicy looking delicious berry. Yeah, column berries,
but they're really tiny little cones. Every part of the
juniper plant has been used for medicinal and religious and
culinary purposes. For pretty much all of recorded history, anywhere
(02:41):
it grows or anywhere it's it's been in reasonable trading distance.
Starts with ancient Egyptian texts that describe the use of
juniper and mummification recipes. John Burgundy's Plague Treatise, which is
written in thirteen sixty five, recommends burning juniper branches to
drive bad and disease from the home. Juniper was also
(03:03):
one of the fragrant substances that was stuffed up into
the beaks of plague doctor masks in the seventeenth century.
The first alcohols made with juniper were also meant for
medicinal or alchemical use. This is something it shares with
the history of vodkast same thing. Most of the most
and most uh Some of the earliest mentions of this
(03:25):
date back to the middle of the eleventh century in
the writing of Benedictine monks living in Salerno, Italy, as
well as the nearby medical school known as Scola Medicina Solana.
Medical texts from this period described a tonic that's made
from distilled wine infused with juniper berries. Eventually, people started
combining juniper with alcohol to make a beverage rather than
(03:48):
a medicine or an alchemical potion. In Finland, suck Ti,
which as like an ale like beer that's flavored with
juniper instead of hops, has been around since about the
twelfth century, and central Europe Borovichka, also called juniper brandy,
has been made since at least the fifteenth century. Today
(04:09):
it's popular in Slovakia and the Czech Republic, and then
there are similar beverages and other Slavic countries as well
that I'll have this juniper flavor to them. But the
beverage that comes up most often as a predecessor to
jin is the Dutch spirit univ That's a term that
comes from the Dutch word for juniper. As is the
(04:29):
case with most food origin stories, the specifics on who
first created univor are not totally clear. The credit often
goes to chemist and physician Francisca Silva's also known as
Francois de la Boi or Sylvia's de la Boi. However,
though Francisca Sylvia's was born in sixteen fourteen, and some
(04:50):
of the accounts of the creation of Your Neighbor put
this development in fifteen seventy two, so well before his birth,
time traveler Yes it is possible that people have conflated
two different people who had similar names, both of whom
worked at the University of Leiden. One was an apothecary
(05:12):
named Silvius Debouve in the sixteenth century, and the other
was Francisca Silvius, who was a professor of medicine in
the seventeenth century. It is just as likely, though, that
no one person can get the soul credit for creating
this drink regardless. Dutch distiller Lucas Bulls was established in
(05:32):
fifteen seventy five and describes itself as the world's oldest
distilled spirits brand. By six two, Bulls was supplying spirits
to the Dutch East India Company, known as the v
o C as it's abbreviated from Dutch. By the middle
of the seventeenth century, v O C sailors were getting
your neighbor in their rations, and soon the v O
(05:53):
C was carrying your neighbor anywhere the Dutch were trading,
including to what is now Indonesia. When the Dutch established
the settlement of New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan,
they introduced your neighbor to North America as well. Today,
your neighbor is sometimes known as Hollands and some people
call it Dutch gin, but it's really its own distinct beverage.
(06:17):
Gin has evolved over time, which we will get to,
but it generally starts with a neutral spirit made from
a grain which is flavored with botanicals including juniper But
your Neighbor typically goes through a two or even three
step process. It starts with a fermented grain mash which
is distilled into a malt wine, and then that is
(06:38):
distilled again with botanicals including juniper berries, and the result
of this process is a clear, malted grain based spirit.
It's typically consumed by itself from a tulip shaped glass.
I In my experience, most people mix gin with other
(06:59):
stuff most of the time. That's not so much the
case with the Neighbor. There's also an official appellasion door
Gene coltrole or an AOC for your Neighbor. Legally true,
your Neighbor can only be made in Holland, Belgium and
very specific regions of France and Germany. While you Neighbor
(07:19):
and Jin are distinctly different drinks, there was probably a
progression from Dutch neighbor to British jin You neighbor was
introduced into Britain sometime during the seventeenth century, and there
are several possibilities for exactly when. One is that during
the Anglo Dutch Wars, which started in sixteen fifty two,
it made its way. Another is after the restoration of
(07:42):
Charles the Second, he spent some time in the Hague
before returning to the British throne in sixteen sixty. Probably
the most common explanation is that you Neiver's popularity in
Britain really started with the Glorious Revolution and King James
the Second was deposed and succeeded by William the Third,
also known as William of Orange stadholder of the Netherlands.
(08:05):
William ruled with his wife Mary, who was James's daughter.
Regardless of exactly when or how it was introduced, after
Niavor made its way into Britain, English speakers morphed its
name into Geneva or Jennifer, and then shortened that to
jin Yeah, because the neighbor has spelled g e n
e v er, so if you're reading it on a
(08:28):
page as an English speaker, it looks like it's Jennifer.
So since common juniper as native to the UK. There
were already culinary and medicinal uses for it well before
univor was introduced, and in written accounts from the seventeenth century,
it's not always totally clear exactly what people are describing,
(08:51):
whether it's Dutch neighbor or a local British beverage or
a medicinal preparation made from alcohol and juniper. For example,
past podcast subjects Samuel Peeps described feeling unwell in his
diary entry from October fourth, sixteen sixty three. Peeps was
chronically ill. He had recurring bladder stones, and over the
(09:13):
next few days his diary entries describe him as being
in pain and constipated and experiencing painful urination. Then, on
October tenth, he writes about making himself go into his
office where he met with Sir John Men's, Comptroller of
the Navy, and Sir William Batten, Surveyor of the Navy.
He said of their conversation quote, Sir je Men's and
(09:36):
Sir W. Batten did advise me to take some juniper water,
and Sir W. Batton sent to his lady for some
for me strong water made of juniper. Well, Peeps does
describe starting to feel better over the next couple of days.
He had also tried some other treatments. So it's not
a clear whether this strong water made of juniper, whether
(09:57):
it was your neighbor or gin or or something else,
was effective or not. So while there's some uncertainty and
some overlap here, jin definitely became a lot more popular
in Britain during William and Mary's reign. And it was
not just because William was Dutch and would have brought
a Dutch influence to things. It's also because of things
(10:20):
like wars and laws, and we'll get to that after
a sponsor break. Soon after William and Mary came to
the throne of the United Kingdom, they declared war on France.
(10:40):
This was part of the Nine Years War which started
in six and then Parliament passed the Trade with France
Act of that band all trade with France and that
put an end to all of the imports of French
wine and French brandy. In sixteen ninety, Parliament pass the
(11:00):
Act for Encouraging the Distilling of Brandy and Spirits from Corn,
the set of duty of eight shillings per gallon on
quote strong waters brandy Aqua vita and spirits from the
Channel Islands, and it decreed that any liquors found to
have been grown or manufactured in French territory would be destroyed.
(11:22):
At this point, the British beer industry was regulated and taxed,
but you didn't need a license to sell jim, so
this law meant that locally made spirits distilled from green
were the cheapest alcoholic beverage available. It also helped create
more demand for British grown grain, since pretty much every
grain was lumped into the category of corn, so this
(11:44):
law helped boost the price of grain to the benefit
of British landowners by encouraging people to use it to
make alcohol. The UK also already had its own distilling
guild that was the Worshipful Company of Distillers STA, published
in sixteen thirty eight. The guild initially had a monopoly
on distilling in the area around London, and the number
(12:08):
of distilleries in the Kingdom really grew in the last
half of the seventeenth century thanks to its influence. So
by the time this law was passed encouraging the distilling
of brandy and spirits from corn, the UK was pretty
ready for it. These spirits were really all over the
place in terms of their quality and ingredients and what
(12:30):
type of alcohol we would actually describe them as today.
But by the early eighteenth century, one in particular was
becoming prominent, and that was Jin. The first written use
of the word Jin in the G I N form
in English was in seventeen thirteen from the Infernal Congress
or News from Below, being a letter from Dick Estcourt,
(12:52):
the late famous comedian, to the Spectator. It read, quote,
being fatigued with Touchen's impudence, I took a turn in
the Prato and drunk a dram of royal gin with
the Duchess of Portsmouth, who has a little brandy shop here.
Jen was also really quickly becoming notorious. In seventeen fourteen,
(13:12):
Bernard Mandeville published The Fable of the Bees or Private
Vices Public Benefits. In this book, he made the argument
that various vices, many of which were widely criticized and
even condemned, actually contributed to some sort of public good.
So here's how Mandeville described Jin. Quote nothing is more destructive,
(13:35):
either in regard to the health or the vigilance and
industry of the poor than the infamous liquor, the name
of which derived from Juniper and Dutch, is now by
frequent use, and the laconic spirit of the nation. From
a word of meddling length shrunk into a monosyllable, intoxicating
gin that charms the unactive, the desperate, and the crazy
(13:57):
of either sex, and makes the starving lot hold his
rags and nakedness with stupid indolence or banter, both in
senseless laughter and more insipid jest. It is a fiery
lake that sets the brain in flame, burns up the entrols,
and scorches every part within, and at the same time
(14:17):
a leaf of oblivion in which the wretch immersed drowns
in most pinching cares and with his reason all anxious
reflections on brats that cry for food, hard winters, frosts,
and horrid empty home. I just wanted to shout out
to Holly because this was written in the seventeen hundreds
(14:38):
and and it was full of long essays that looked
like F's and I missed one of the long essays
when I was getting it into here. Holly corrected it
on the fly. I did not have to go. It
does not say the fame time, it should in fact
say the same time. Uh I love things with long
(15:00):
esses in them, but sometimes they can be challenging. Uh so.
Vandeville went on to blame Gin for making men quarrelsome
and violent and even causing murders, for breaking down people's constitutions,
and for causing consumption and sudden death. But he says
these are rare compared to quote loss of appetite, fevers,
(15:22):
black and yellow jaundice, convulsions, stone and gravel, drops, ease,
and luco phlegmasies. He also goes on at very great
length about all the squalid conditions and areas that are
home to establishments that sell spirits, and to all the
social and economic ills that those establishments cause. But Mandeville
(15:47):
then goes on to say, quote those who can enlarge
their view and will give themselves the leisure of gazing
on the prospect of concatenated events may in a hundred
places see good spring up and pollulate from evil, as
naturally as chickens do from eggs. The money that arises
from the duties upon malt is a considerable part of
(16:08):
the national revenue, and should no spirits be distilled from it.
The public treasure would prodigiously suffer on that head. But
if we would set in a true light the many
advantages and large catalog of solid blessings that accrue from
and are owing to the evil I treat off, we
are to consider the rents that are received, the ground
(16:29):
that is tilled, the tools that are made, the cattle
that are employed, and above all the multitude of poor
that are maintained by the variety of labor required in husbandry,
in malting, in carriage, and distillation. Before we can have
that product of malt, which we call low wines, and
is but the beginning from which the various spirits are
(16:51):
afterwards to be made. In other words, sure poor people
were getting drunk and sometimes dying because of gin, but
look at how much it was helping the economy. Needless
to say, this book and the argument that Mandeville was
making in it were highly controversial. Mandeville's description of gin
(17:14):
as destructive was not controversial among the British elite, though
in the early eighteenth century it was increasingly taken for
granted that jin was uniquely dangerous and was leading to
all kinds of problems. By about seventeen twenty, this had
blossomed into a full on moral panic described as the
gin craze or sometimes you'll see it as the gin epidemic,
(17:36):
particularly in big cities like London, Portsmouth and Bristol. For
about three decades, there was a huge focus on gin
consumption and the damage it was purportedly doing and how
they might stop it. Then to be cleared, jin did
become a lot more popular in these years, and there
was some real damage involved. Alcohol consumption carried the same
(17:59):
health risks and eighteenth century that it does today. Over
consumption and abuse still impacted people's lives and livelihoods. It
also wasn't uncommon for liquor to be adulterated with other substances,
including things like sulfur, as acid and turpentine, and there
weren't really any age restrictions on drinking, so people of
(18:21):
any age drank really at any time of the day,
including parents using gin and other liquors to try to
soothe their babies. Excessive drinking, and especially drinking too much
gin in particular, also became associated with violence and crime.
Records from London Central Criminal Court a K the Old
(18:41):
Bailey include repeated references to jin. For example, a William Burrows,
who was indicted for assault in seventeen thirty one, was
described as having fallen quote into that dreadful society of
gin drinkers, whores, thieves, housebreakers, street robbers, pickpockets, and the
whole train of the most notable blackguards in and about London.
(19:04):
James Baker, who was convicted of robberies in seventeen thirty three,
was described as quote one of them who frequented gin shops.
Perhaps most horrifyingly, in seventeen thirty four, Judath Defour was
convicted of murder after two witnesses testified that she had
stripped her daughter Mary naked and left her in a field,
(19:25):
and sold the baby's clothes to buy jim at the
same time. Though most of the focus here, most of
the concern was targeted at poor and working class people
and what they were doing with their time and money.
In seventeen seven, Daniel Defoe wrote about the after effects
of the prohibition of trade with France and this increase
(19:47):
in English distilling. He said, quote we find since these
prohibitions very great quantities of brandy run by the arts
of clandestine traders. But even that quantity is now much
abated except in the north parts and the west parts,
since the distillers have found out a way to hit
the palette of the poor by their new fashioned compound
(20:11):
waters called geneva, so that the common people seem not
to value the French brandy as usual and even not
to desire it. Efforts to curtail drinking, and especially gin drinking,
were really rooted in upper class ideas of appropriate behavior
and social standards and on quote, cleaning up the moral
(20:32):
lives of the poor, rather than addressing any of the
social or economic factors that might contribute to excessive drinking. Soon,
gin was perceived as the cause of poverty and immorality,
and it became symbolic of pretty much every vice and
social ill. To combat all of this, Parliament passed a
series of Gin Acts starting in seventeen twenty nine, and
(20:55):
these used a range of strategies, including taxes and fines
and licensing fees and other regulations to try to discourage
gin sales and consumption. For example, in seventeen thirty three,
it became illegal to sell spirits quote about the streets,
in any wheelbarrow or upon the water in any ship,
(21:16):
boat or vessel. Several versions of the Gin Act encouraged
people to inform on others for illegally selling spirits. This
was especially true after the passage of the seventeen thirty
six Act, which did more to stoke illicit gin sales
than to discourage people from doing it. Informers were paid
half of the ten pound fine that was collected for
(21:37):
violating the Act. At some point, this was lucrative enough
that people basically became professional informers, often working in groups
of two or three so they could back up each
other's accounts when they reported someone's illicit business. Professional informers
had to be strategic, though, People who couldn't afford to
pay the fine were sentenced to two months of hard
(21:58):
labor instead, and that meant that the informers would get nothing.
Most informers also avoided reporting people from their own neighborhoods,
since they faced retaliation and sometimes even physical violence, for
getting local drinking establishments shut down. Their reputations in their
own communities also weren't likely to recover if they reported
(22:20):
somebody who knew and trusted them, but there was still
a lot of retaliation. A law passed in seventeen thirty
eight set a penalty of seven years transportation to the
North American colonies for attacking an informer. By that point,
there had been at least twelve thousand prosecutions for selling
gin without a license, and these laws disproportionately affected women.
(22:44):
Newly established gin houses were often more welcoming to women
than pubs that sold beer were, especially when it came
to single, working class women. So even though women weren't
necessarily drinking more gin than men were, they were more
visible than they had been. This was kind of new,
so soon the drink was being more associated with women.
(23:05):
Jen became known by nicknames like Ladies Delight, Mother Geneva,
and Mother Jin. But at the same time, while only
about a third of Britain's unlicensed gin sellers were women,
at least half the people who faced charges for violating
the gen X were women. Women also made up as
much as three fourths of the people who were imprisoned
(23:29):
because they could not afford to pay the fine. The
gen Ax were deeply unpopular among poor and working class people,
leading to riots in seventeen thirty seven. Trying to enforce
the law was also expensive, and in the seventeen forties
the Kingdom needed to put more money toward the War
of the Austrian Succession. This was also happening in parallel
(23:50):
with the Jacobite uprisings that we have covered on the
show before, and there were fears that the Jacobites were
stirring up discontent among working class people, using all of
this furor over gin as a cover. On top of
all these factors and shifts in the government's priorities, two
of the biggest proponents of the Gin Acts died in
(24:11):
the late seventeen thirties. One was Sir Joseph Checkal, Master
of the Rolls, and the other was Edward Parker, who
had run a professional informing ring that had accused at
least fifteen hundred people of illegal activity. So, after all this,
the wars and the Jacobites and the people dying, in
seventeen forty three, Parliament repealed the act that had been
(24:35):
passed in seventeen thirty six and replaced it with one
that was more focused on regulating the industry that on
trying to curtail it. So licenses became more affordable and
the unlicensed gin trade started to wane. The war may
have contributed to a decline in the illicit liquor trade
as well. Some people who had been supporting themselves that
(24:57):
way instead found work related to the war. A new
style of beer was also introduced around this time. That
would be porter, which started to become more popular and
more affordable to working class people. The Gin Act of
seventeen fifty one built on the one that had been
passed in seventeen forty three. It increased the duty on
(25:18):
gin and set a licensing fee of two pounds a year,
and mandated that only respectable people were eligible for a
license to sell spirits. Jin's popularity continued to wane in
the UK after this, dropping from an estimated eight point
five million gallons consumed in seventeen fifty one to five
(25:40):
point nine million just a year later. You think of
millions of gallons, it sounds like so much, but that's
a huge drop off. It's it's a you know, spread
out among a lot of people also drinking a lot.
Like a lot of people drinking a lot for sure. Uh.
There had been a huge number of pamphlets, sermons, works
(26:02):
of art and the like during the Gin craze, and ironically,
the one that's probably the most well known came out
at the very end of this That was jin Lane
by past podcast subject William Hogarth. And this was an
engraving showing all of the evils of Gin, among other things,
an extremely emaciated man with a cup and bottle in
(26:22):
his hands, an inebriated woman whose child is falling over
the railing of the stairs that she's sitting on, and
a crowd of people having a melee in the background.
It has the caption jin cursed fiend with fury, fraud
makes human race a prey. It enters by a deadly
draft and steals our life away, virtue and truth. Driven
(26:44):
to despair, its rage compels to fly, but cherishes with
hellish care, theft, murder, perjury, damned cup that on the vitals,
praise that liquid fire contains, which madness to the heart
conveys and rolls it through the veins. O Garth put
out his engraving Beer Street as a companion to this one.
(27:07):
This is a far more pleasant scene of people mostly
just going about their lives and business. It's caption reads
quote beer happy produce of our aisle con sinu e strength,
impart and wearied with fatigue and toil, can cheer each
manly heart labor and art upheld by the successfully advanced.
(27:29):
We quoth thy balmy juice with glee and water, leave
to France genius of health, thy grateful taste rivals the
cup of Jove when warms each English generous breast with
liberty and love, Oh William hogarth Beer good, Jin bad.
(27:50):
In the words of William Hogarth, I also read some
speculation that the reason that he put this out like
really at the end of all this, when Jim's popularity
was dropping really quickly, was that, thanks to the ends
of earlier wars, there were suddenly a lot of unemployed
sailors and others about, and that that made uh people
(28:10):
worried once again about the specter of gin, Oh William
hogarth Um. Obviously this was not the end of gin.
So we're going to talk about what happened in Jin's
history a little bit more after we pause for a
sponsor break. In eighteenth century Britain, the drink that people
(28:37):
were consuming and describing as gin was really all over
the place in terms of what grain it was made
of and how it was flavored, what it tasted like,
whether it was adulterated with anything dangerous. Most of it
was made in batches in pot stills, so there could
even be a huge variation in quality from batch to batch,
(28:59):
even when those batches were all made by the same distiller.
In general, though, a lot of the flavorings that were
added into it who were there to try to improve
the taste of some generally poor quality alcohol. One of
those flavorings was sugar, so the final beverage was sweeter
than jin typically is today most of the time. And
(29:22):
this sweeter, rougher jin became known as Old Tom, and
there are several stories about where that name came from.
One is that when the Gin Acts were in effect,
Captain Dudley Bradstreet rented a house for the purpose of
illicitly selling gin. He put a picture of an Old
Tom cat on the outside, and customers would put their
money in a drawer built into the wall and whisper
(29:44):
a code word, and then their gin would be dispensed
through a lead pipe that ran out through the wall
from the inside of the house to the outside, and
the customer would catch it in a cup. Well. I
love this story. It may be apocryphal, and Old Tom
may just be a weird name that cropped up. There
(30:04):
are some places that still make old Tom gin as
like a craft gin experience. Even though gin consumption dropped
off pretty quickly after seventeen fifty one, the beverage did
not go away entirely. Later on, in the eighteen twenties,
a grain surplus combined with a reduction in the duties
that were levied on spirits, and jin started to surge
(30:27):
in popularity again. A new kind of drinking establishment also
evolved around this time. That was the Gin Palace, which
tended to be a brightly lit and heavily decorated space
where people came to drink. In the mid eighteen twenties,
thanks to all this jin consumption in Britain roughly doubled.
(30:49):
This stoked a lot of the same concerns that had
been part of the gin craze that happened about a
hundred years earlier. In an eighteen thirty The Lancet published
an article describing what they called gin liver. That's what
we would know as cerrosis today. But efforts to reduce
gin consumption in the early nineteenth century were focused less
on making gin more expensive and more regulated, and more
(31:11):
on making beer cheaper. This didn't have quite the intended
effect though public houses serving beer became more popular among
the working class, while more middle class people started to
prefer gin served in a gin palace. Can't didn't really
reduce the popularity of gin very much. It just sort
of flipped which social classes preferred which drink. The process
(31:34):
of making gin also changed somewhat around this time. The
column still was developed. Starting around eighteen twenty two, Irish
distiller and NEAs Coffee refined this design and was awarded
for a patent on his improved version in eighteen thirty.
Unlike pots stills, which required distillers to make their wares
(31:57):
in small batches, the columns still had run continually, and
this made the final product a lot more consistent with
generally better quality. Again, there are still plenty of distillers
who work in small batches using pot stills today, but
generally using more sophisticated techniques and more consistency than in
(32:18):
the eighteenth century. The development of the column still also
led to a new style of gin, London Dry, named
for being made in London and for not being sweetened.
Some of the distillers that were established around this time
still exists today. For example, Charles tanker Ay established a
distillery in the Bloomsbury neighborhood of London. In eighteen thirty
(32:39):
Plymouth gin was evolving as well, sweeter and stronger than
London dry, and available in a more potent navy strength
for provisioning to the Royal Navy. There were still a
lot of concerns about all the social issues associated with drinking,
and specifically with drinking gin, though Charles Dickens started right
(33:00):
about this and his sketches by Bass in eighteen thirty six.
Unlike earlier writers from back in the seventeen hundreds, though
Dickens didn't really frame jin as the cause of poverty.
He was fond of jin himself, and instead he described
over consumption and alcohol abuse as effects of poverty and
(33:22):
poor living conditions. Quote Jim, Drinking is a great vice
in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater And
until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade
a half famished wretch not to seek relief in the
temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which
divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread
(33:44):
for each Gin shops will increase in number and splendor,
just like William Hogarth had depicted jin Lane in the
eighteenth century. Other artists depicted the dangers of alcohol in
the nineteenth century, including George Cruikshank, who is sometimes called
the modern Hogarths. Krukshanks satirical The Gin Shop shows a
(34:05):
whole inebriated family in the shop, including children standing in
a trap with death off to one side, and a
cask of old tom shaped like a coffin. Unlike the
eighteenth century movement that had mostly focused on spirits, the
temperance movement that arose in the UK in the nineteenth
century focused on the dangers of all alcohols, including beer.
(34:28):
More London dry distillers were established in the middle of
the nineteenth century, including Gilbie's in eighteen fifty seven and
Beef Eater in eighteen sixty three. Distillers also started experimenting
with different blends of botanicals in addition to the junipers,
to give their products different flavor profiles. All kinds of
(34:50):
gin based cocktails and mixed drinks evolved during the nineteenth century.
Bidders were popularized in the UK around this time, particularly
pay Shows and Angus Your a Biters Plymouth gin flavored
with angister a biters became known as pink gin, which
was both a popular beverage and a treatment to soothe
the stomach and prevent seasickness. Here in the US you
(35:12):
can buy various pink gins in bottles, some of which
are this and some of which are not or pink
for some other reason. Another nineteenth century innovation was the gimlet,
combining gin and lime, and this probably arose from the
use of lime juice to prevent scurvy amongst sailors. Sometimes
(35:34):
this name is attributed to Sir Thomas Gimlets, the surgeon
General of the Navy, although another idea is that it
was named for the tool that was used to drill
holes in the barrels that these liquids were stored in.
That tool is also called a gimlet. The martini was
introduced by about eighteen seventy, combining gin, vermouth, and garnish.
(35:56):
This is also about when the gin and tonic made
its debut. Chinchona bark has its own long long history
as the source of medicine to treat recurring fevers. Quinine
comes from Cinchona bark, and the British Royal Navy relied
on it to treat malaria. Quinine was unpleasant to consume,
though in eighteen seventy Schwepps introduced what it called Indian
(36:20):
tonic water that was carbonated water infused with quinine. John
Jacob Schwepp was not the first person to carbonate water,
and Schwepps was not the first company to combine carbonated
water and quinine. But Schwepps was the first company to
produce carbonated water at an industrial scale and also to
(36:42):
market this quinine tonic as a malaria preventative. Mixing tonic
water with gin and serving that over ice became a
popular way for people in tropical areas to get their
doses of quinine. Tonic water, as it is produced today,
has far less quinine in it does not really prevent
(37:04):
our treat malaria at the currents proportions. Please do not
count on on these things as medicine for yourself. Uh.
This brings us to Jin's connections to colonialism. Anywhere the
British Empire established a trade or started a colony, it
introduced gin or made gin more widely available there than
(37:25):
it had been before. Britain and other European powers also
traded liquor for enslaved Africans during the Transatlantic slave trade.
Overwhelmingly the people already living in these areas already had
their own fermenting methods, and unless religious prohibitions on alcohol
were in place, some of them were used to make beers, wines,
or other alcoholic beverages in addition to being used to
(37:47):
preserve foods. But stronger distilled spirits were often a new innovation,
and this led to some of the same societal and
health issues that Britain had already witten Nets starting in
the eighteenth century, combined with the same paternalistic attitudes about
how working or poorer people were spending their time, but
(38:09):
now a lot of those attitudes were also threaded through
with racism. Colonial officials often had a lot of concerns
as local people developed their own distilling practices and lumped
everything that they were making under the umbrella of gin,
regardless of what was actually being used. So as one
(38:32):
example in Nigeria, British officials described locally made distilled palm
wine as gin, even though did not have the ingredients
that were commonly used to make gin. So we haven't
really talked about the United States at all, Although jin
did exist in the US, Americans tended to prefer both
(38:54):
beer and whiskey to gin, but when prohibition went into
effect in nineteen twenty, ilicit gin became a bit more popular.
Jin was easier to make than many other spirits since
it did not need to be aged, and since the
juniper could help disguise the flavor of roughly made alcohol.
The terms radiator gin and bathtub gin arose during this time,
(39:17):
although bathtub gin was probably meant to describe the dirtiness
of the bootleg gin rather than it actually being made
in a bathtub. Yeah, the idea of it really being
made in bathtubs sort of came about in film depictions
of prohibition from later on, rather than how people using it.
We're using it at the time. In the early twentieth century,
(39:39):
jin's popularity started to wane in a lot of the world.
When it came to distilled spirits and their popularity, Jin
was really overtaken by vodka, but especially in the United States,
attitudes towards drinking also started to shift. Alcoholics Anonymous was
established in Nive, and by nineteen fifty the organization had
(40:01):
grown large enough to hold its first international convention. The
popularity of the quote three martini lunch rose and fell
over the course of the mid twentieth century, with Jimmy
Carter criticizing that practice when he ran for president in
ninety six. Over time, Jin and drinks made with Jin
(40:22):
started to be seen as pretty passe. However, again, if
you live in the modern world, you know jim didn't
go away. Uh, there's really been a resurgence in gin
and its popularity more recently. Some people mark jin's resurgence
as starting with the introduction of Bombay sapphire in others
(40:42):
credit Scottish distillers William Grant and Sons, which introduced Hendrix Jin,
and over the last couple of decades there's been a
big focus on small batch craft distillers experimenting with botanical
blends to come up with their own flavorings and seasonal
gin's in the like. In the global gin market was
(41:02):
valued at fourteen point oh three billion dollars, with European
consumers making up about half of that market share. Yes,
Jin a lot of variety in gin nowadays. If if
we did not mention your favorite gin or your favorite
Jin drink, UH, don't feel personally left out. I haven't
(41:24):
mentioned my favorite ones either. Do you have listener mail
that may or may not involve Jim. I do. I
do have listener mail. Even though we started off this
episode with mail, We're gonna read some more mail. This
is from Page Page Route. Dear Tracy and Holly. I've
been an avid listener of your podcast since February, and
(41:44):
I've sent you a few emails expressing my thanks. This
is the first time I've had something relevant to contribute.
I was flipping through my National Geographic magazine the other
day and came across an article titled Eating the Problem
about chefs turning invasive species into food. To my delight,
kudzoo was included. I immediately went back and listened to
(42:04):
your episode about the vine that ate the South. In
recent years, kad zoo has been served pickled, fried, dried, fermented,
and even as a pesto. This is not the only
invasive species getting the restaurant treatment. Chefs have also turned
to cooking up lion fish, feral hogs, and Asian carp
Although eating these creatures will not completely eradicate them, it
(42:26):
is a way to reduce their land cover. Additionally, you
mentioned Japanese not weed in your episode as well, which
we have several patches of near our house. Every time
we pass them, my mom, who was a gardener, remarks
on how hard it is to kill and how it
is spreading like crazy. Hopefully not weed will not end
up taking over the north like Kudzo did the South,
but it is quite difficult to get rid of. Thank
(42:49):
you so much for your wonderful podcast. I look forward
to my bus rides each day as they give me
a chance to listen to your latest episode. I'm including
a picture of my pug, Ruthy as well. She loves
the show almost as much as I do. You keep
up with the wonderful work, best Page. Ruthie is such
a cute pug. Look at this um. I just liked
(43:14):
this email this morning, and also making kunzy pesto reminded
me of how uh we get most of our vegetables
from our farmer's market, and the farm that we get
our carrots from sells the carrots with all their tops
still attached, and we have made carrot top pesto a
bunch of times. It's been quite yummy. So thanks Page
(43:34):
for this note. If you'd like to send us an
email about this or any other podcasts for a history
podcast at i heart radio dot com and we're all
over social media at missed in History. That's where you'll
find our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. And you can
subscribe to our show on I heart radio app and
anywhere else you'd like to get your podcasts. Stuff you
(44:00):
Missed in History Class is a production of I heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i
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Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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