Gin originated as is a distilled alcoholic drink based on juniper berries that was popularized by the Dutch in the 16th century called “Genever”. Genever was essentially a malt wine base with a large amount of juniper berries to mask the harsh taste. The name “Gin” was first coined in a book called “The Fable of the Bees, or Private Vices, Publick Benefits” by Bernard Mandeville, an anglo-dutch philosopher and political economist who wrote “‘The infamous liquor, the name of which deriv’d from Juniper-Berries in Dutch, is now, by frequent use… shrunk into a Monosyllable, intoxicating Gin.”
The late 1600s were an important year for gin, when William III instituted The Corn Laws in England, which decreed tax breaks for the production of spirits, creating a distilling free for all as distillers of all sorts rushed to create spirits and profit. This led to what became known as the “Gin Craze” in the first half of the 18th century when the consumption of gin increased rapidly in London as well as Great Britain. The “Gin Craze” became a period of consumption of gin which became a citywide epidemic of extreme drunkenness.
The British Parliament passed a series of acts (1729, 1736, 1743, 1747, 1751) to control the consumption of gin either by taxation or controlling the amount of gin consumed per year (2.2 gallons / 10 liters per year in 1743)
The Gin Craze started to decrease after the “Gin Act” of 1751 where historians argue that gin consumption was ultimately reduced not by legislation but by the rising cost of grain required to make it. The Gin Craze ended in 1757 when the government banned the manufacture of spirits from domestic grain.
Gin consumption resurged during the Victorian era when “Gin Palaces” started to appear.
