Gin

Because it is the only thing you ever need.

At Bistro 63 at the Monkey Bar, we have nineteen different gins. Gin is, and this is a directly used phrase in almost every literature I have ever seen on proper bartending, the quintessential cocktail ingredient. Without gin, there is no bar. For comparison, we have only 7 vodkas, and half of those are infusions or flavored distillates. Why do we have so many gins when vodka is the popular spirit of choice for most Americans? The short answer is that popular America is stocked with timid, misinformed drinkers who are afraid to try anything that has too much English on it. But let's take a look at the long answer.

Gin has origins dating back to the mid-twelfth century at the very least, when Italian monks would create a juniper based elixir that was supposed to aid in kidney issues (such as Bright's disease, which is a complication of the kidneys named in the early 19th century.) Of course,  inhabitants of Europe had for many years used alcoholic herbal infusions to create various potions and remedies for the ill, but it was not until the Dutch began to shape and refine distillation (something I will get to in more detail for a later post) that the juniper based elixir began to take its spirit form. The Dutch became famous for their juniper based elixir known as genever, a musky, aromatic and extremely juniper forward spirit still produced today.

After the English aided the Dutch in the Thirty Years War, it is supposed that it was soldiers that brought back the genever as a tonic for both the health and the nerves. It turns out, it is much easier to run screaming onto the fields of hell with a nice buzz than stone-cold sober. Nonetheless, it was then the English who took the genever, recreated the recipe and re-labelled it as "gin."

Gin has an even more fascinating history from there, which I encourage my readers to indulge in elsewhere as I do not presently have time or space for a full historical workup. The short of it is that gin became very cheap after a spell due to England's isolationist climate and lax laws on distillation, making it wildly popular (and often times, wildly toxic) in England. Eventually, some of the English changed the recipe further, giving rise to a style known as "London dry gin," an unsweetened, no-nonsense version of the spirit. Some common London drys are Beefeater, Bombay Sapphire, and Van Gogh, Tanqueray. All of these are common and popular choices for gin and tonics, where the subtle notes of the dry gin blend with the sweetness of the tonic without becoming overpowering.

There are a few other main types of gin. "Plymouth," is the next most popular, and according to old English law must have been made in the city of Plymouth, although I believe laws on that are a bit more lax nowadays. Plymouths are aromatic-over-juniper; that is, while they do not contain the same dryness as London dry, they possess a distinctly aromatic and botanical sense with underlying juniper. Genever, by contrast, is juniper-over-aromatic, as is a particular gin called "Junipero" (Junipero is a US Dry Gin.) Each of these has different flavor profiles that will grossly change the overall effect of a gin drink. This is obvious in something like a martini, meant to showcase the gin, but surprisingly relevant to classics like the negroni (eq. parts gin, Campari, sweet vermouth). The choice of gin in a negroni makes the drink. Plymouth, with its citrusy, aromatic notes, makes a great choice for a negroni - by comparison, the London dry can often feel flat and uninteresting in the cocktail. Again, I encourage you to indulge on your own and try this out.

A third and much less well known style is called "Old Tom" gin. This is a style of gin created in the 18th century, supposedly named for the sign of a black cat from which illegal pours of gin were served. Old Tom is slightly sweeter than its London counterpart, and often dark in color. A point of confusion that should be avoided is that its color is not a result of barrel aging, as is the case in most spirit productions (especially whisk(e)y.) Old Tom's color is the result of the combination of the sheer amount of intense botanicals crammed into the production process and the pot still used to refine them. The pot still style, tear dropped shaped and famous for its utilization in Macallan's distilleries (again, I will be doing a later post specifically on distillation), retains more oils and heavier volatiles than the more modernized column stills used for distillation today. This theory also makes me think that older gins were probably darker in color than their modern day counterparts, which are usually translucent. Original Old Tom style gin also had simple syrup added to it in the bottling process, increasing the sweetness and enhancing its palatability.

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RECIPE: Dickinson Sour*

1 oz. Ransom Old Tom Gin
1.25 oz. Nardini Aqua di Cedro
0.75 oz. lemon juice
0.25 oz. pure maple syrup

Hard shake, strained up in a coupe. No garnish.
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There are still further types of gins and gins unclassified entirely. Genever could count as its own classifcation; Old Raj (dry) is considered "mid-pungency" by Hellmich; there is an apparent style known as "Naval," which are usually overproof, and then there is a whole slew of modern creations not even really categorized. Some interesting examples of these are the St. George's Dry Rye, Botanical and Terroir, or Monkey #47 dry gin, or Beefeater 24, which involves tea in its brewing process. There is sloe gin, which is made with blackthorn root, there is plum gin by Averell, and there is even barrel-aged gin (Berkshire Mountain's Ethereal Barrel Aged is one of my favorite spirits to drink on the rocks.) Gin also had a particularly notorious place in the era of prohibition, but again I will need to make a separate writeup entirely on that point.

To date, there are more classic cocktails with gin recipes than any other single spirit. The Martini is and always has been a gin drink. In fact, many classics Americans have come to familiar with as vodka drinks were originally gin - the martini, the gimlet, the Greyhound were all originally made with gin and pirated by 1950s Americans to become vodka based travesties. With the resurgence in barchemistry in artisan establishments, gin is finally starting to make a comeback. I've had at least a dozen arguments about the definition of a negroni in the last two weeks, one row that will always be music to my ears. People are still ordering "bone dry" martinis, but at least many of them are daring to ask for Tanqueray instead of Grey Goose. At our bar, we work with gin as a primary. When I make a cocktail, I (perhaps too frequently) go straight to my gin section for the base. It is an incredibly versatile liquor and has more use than any other single spirit behind the bar.

So this week, stir yourself a martini with some Beefeater, sit back, light up a smoke, and remember the history that your poured into your glass. Just don't expect it to cure your kidney disease.

_theBarchemist

*Copyright Rabib Rafiq at Bistro 63 at the Monkey Bar