There’s absolutely no doubt that ‘mother’s ruin’ is the spirit of the moment and we’re in the middle of a fullon gin renaissance. Sales of the juniper-flavoured spirit are rocketing globally, with distillers falling over themselves to release fresh craft expressions to keep up with the growing worldwide demand for new gins. According to the British Wine and Spirit Trade Association, the U.K. saw a 12% increase in volumes sold last year, and a 32% increase in the amount of British gin exported in the past five years. Some historians label the rise of gin as England’s first real drug craze. First made as a medicinal tonic in the early 1600s, in the 18th-century gin was considered such a blight on society that various acts were introduced in an attempt to restrict its consumption. Hugely unpopular with the working-classes, the introduction of the 1736
Gin Act, which imposed a high tax on gin retailers, caused widespread riots in London. As a result, the tax was significantly lowered within a few years. Fifteen years later, the Gin Act of 1751 prohibited gin distillers from selling to unlicensed merchants, restricted the issuing of retail licenses and charged high fees to those who were eligible to retail the spirit. And, in an attempt to replace gin in the cups of the masses, the importation of tea was encouraged as an alternative! Of course, the gin of 18th-century England (which was crude and cheap) is very different from what we drink now. Whereas today’s gin is generally 40% ABV (alcohol by volume), it’s likely that the homemade distilled concoctions of the 1700s were much stronger, possibly as high as 50%. Cheap, widely available and legal, highly-intoxicating gin proved to be an addictive,