You may have noticed a surge in gin drinking in the early 2020s. Every bar had a list as long as your arm of small-batch gins, hand-crafted gins, pink and flavoured gins, alongside the old favourites. The press termed it a Ginaissance, but it tailed off a few years later. Nothing like the Gin Craze of the 18th Century, which lasted 60 years and caused riots, murders, death and furious political debate. This craze gave rise to a genuine social epidemic and would change the shape of Britain. Jo Evans explores the Gin Craze!
The consumption of alcohol has been around since the dawn of time, pretty much. The most popular drink in the 17th Century was ale or beer. Favoured mainly by the lower classes, it was cleaner than water in many urban areas. Wine and brandy, imported from France, were the favoured drinks of the upper classes, along with spirits known as Aqua Vitae or Eaux de Vie, usually a base alcohol flavoured with herbs or spices. The Dutch had one such spirit called Jenever, which had juniper berries added, used as a drink but more often as a medicinal draught by apothecaries. Madam Jenever had been in the wings for some years, but it was in 1690 that the stars aligned for her to take centre stage.
Britain’s new monarch, William III, was Dutch therefore, anything from the Netherlands was hugely popular, including Jenever, which was anglicised to Genever or Gin. William’s ongoing feud with France resulted in sanctions and resulted in a serious shortage of French brandy and wine. A surplus of corn allowed Parliament to waive on the production of alcohol using British corn, thus keeping happy the wealthy landowners and distillers. The population of London had almost tripled in the 17 th Century, to 600,000 by 1690, making it the largest city in Europe. Gone were the social restrictions of small-town life; food was cheap and people had money to spend. Enter Madam Geneva at the height of these halcyon days, which were soon to take a downward turn.
Tanners Hereford Gin
Tanners Hereford Gin traces its origins back to 1760, when William Pulling established a cider merchant business in Ledbury. He expanded into wine and spirits in 1813, producing gin at their distillery in Hereford’s East Street, just at the rear of Tanners’ current branch in St Peter’s Square. The company sold cider, wine and spirits all over Herefordshire, the Marches and South Wales, using river and canal transport via their Gloucester depot and, from the 1850s onward, by the expanding railway network. They continued to make the Hereford brand of gin until 1939 using the same stills. Tanners bought Pullings in 1978 and revived Hereford gin in 1983, which has been a best seller for Tanners for over 40 years.
Over the next few decades, jobs, wages and housing did not keep pace with the population boom and the poorer areas of London spread. The narrow, dark alleys were caked in sewage, dirt and rubbish. Derelict rookeries offered cramped shared rooms with little light or ventilation, and dosshouses offered flea-ridden mattresses, usually shared with strangers. The alternative was homelessness. It’s little wonder that pennies earned or acquired were spent on something that would warm the stomach and offer a chance to forget the misery of surroundings. Let’s not forget that gin was not the botanical-infused delight we drink today, but harsh, eye-watering firewater, often mixed with substances like turpentine, urine and sulphuric acid. Gin also provided an opportunity to make money. It became readily available from houses, sheds, lean-tos, brothels and prisons. In St Giles-in-the-Fields, one of London’s once most notorious slums, an estimated 1 out of 5 houses sold gin. Street hawkers selling gin frequented public areas, markets, squares, fairs, sporting events and public hangings. Gin was everywhere and, most importantly, it was cheap.
Regarded as the drink of the lower classes, gin was drunk by men, women and children. Prior to the Craze, women drank, but taverns were very much male domains. Now, gin could be bought on every street corner, in markets and shops, women’s alcohol consumption became more noticeable and gin itself became feminised. The press referred to Madam Geneva or Mother Gin and always humanised her as a bawdy old woman. The anti-gin movement focused on the public drunkenness of women, illustrated so brilliantly by William Hogarth in his famous depiction of Gin Lane. The birth rate was lower than the death rate. Babies were born with foetal alcohol syndrome and were often given gin to keep them from crying. It’s not too surprising, but horrifying nonetheless, to hear that 75% of children in London did not live past the age of 5 years.
The press circulated lurid stories of the effects of gin – people in stupors dying from house fires, people dropping dead after drinking several pints of gin, and a notorious case of a woman murdering her child and selling its clothes for gin. By encouraging the distilling of cheap gin, Parliament had created a monster which needed to be slain.
Plymouth Gin
Although London was at the heart of the Gin Craze, many ports also succumbed to the lure of Madam Geneva. One such place was Plymouth and, like London, the craze had dissipated by the end of the 18 th Century, leaving clear the way for higher quality gins. Plymouth Gin was first produced in 1793, by the Coates family, at the Black Friars Distillery, an old monastery in the heart of the city.
The Royal Navy became a major customer, purchasing large quantities for its officers. This led to the requirement that the gin be “gunpowder proof.” As spirits were often stored alongside gunpowder in the ship’s hold, the alcohol content needed to be high enough to ensure the powder would still ignite if any spillage occurred. This threshold was established at 57% ABV - anything lower would render the gunpowder ineffective - giving rise to what is now known as Navy Strength gin.
The original Plymouth gin featured fewer citrus notes and a stronger emphasis on earthy, root-based flavours, resulting in a markedly different taste from today’s version. Over time, the recipe has evolved alongside changing tastes, and modern Plymouth Gin now has fresh juniper notes complemented by a bright, lemony finish.
The first Gin Act of 1729 sought to restrict sales by increasing duties and imposing licences on gin sellers. The initial panic of people, believing their beloved gin would be taken away, led to mock funerals for Madam Geneva, protests and a bomb detonated in Westminster Hall. However, the Act defined gin as ‘alcohol flavoured with juniper berries’, allowing many retailers to forgo the juniper and sell it as ‘Parliament Brandy’. Apothecaries who brewed spirits for medicinal purposes were exempt, leading to a huge rise in patients complaining of illness. Further Acts were passed to close the loopholes and increase punishments, and by 1738, the fine for an unlicensed retailer was £100 and a street hawker fine was £10, with 2 months minimum hard labour, prison or transportation for repeat offenders.
Puss & Mew
The Gin Acts did not diminish sales of gin; they merely drove it further underground. Entrepreneurs found clever ways around the laws, for example, a certain Captain Bradstreet, reading that excise men could not enter a suspected gin house without knowing the identity of the owner, devised an ingenious contraption called the Puss and Mew. A large wooden cat covered a window. The buyer would put pennies into the cat’s mouth and call out “Puss”, a reply of “Mew” was given from behind the board and gin would be poured down a pipe from the cat’s paw. The success of Captain Bradstreet’s invention saw Puss and Mews pop up all over London.
The Gin Act of 1738 further encouraged informers by providing large rewards for anyone who could tip off the authorities about unlicensed gin houses. Not only did this lead to protection rackets and blackmail but it also angered many gin drinkers. Riots and mob risings were common, with informers being assaulted and, in some cases, killed. Drinking gin became a protest against unpopular local Magistrates and Parliament. Five years later, another Gin Act reversed it all, lowering the price of licenses so that public houses could afford to sell it again, thus reducing the number of black-market gin houses and the need for informers. This took away the mob’s complaints and peace was restored.
A mass influx of soldiers, returning from European wars, led to a decrease in wages and a rise in crime. This was ideal for the campaigners, like author Henry Fielding, who blamed crime levels on gin. The final Gin Act of 1751 added a small increase on permits and duties; however, by this time the consumption of gin was dropping. Poor harvests increased the price of food and with a drop in wages, people simply could no longer afford to buy gin. Like many trends, the Gin Craze was finally fading. By 1752, the volume of duty-paid spirits had fallen by a third, yet annual consumption remained about 25% higher than in the previous century, showing the lasting impact of the Gin Craze on society.
Further bad harvests eventually led to a total ban on the distillation of the grains used in gin. Gin was still produced from molasses, which was much more expensive, its higher price ensuring improvement in quality and a new respectability. Madam Geneva may have disappeared from the gutter, but she would eventually put on her best dress and attend the party once more, this time as a reputable lady.
Gordon's Gin
One of the world’s most well-known gin producers is also one of its oldest. In 1769, after the final Gin Act was passed and the spirit was no longer being drunk by the poorer classes, a young Londoner with Scottish heritage, opened a distillery. Alexander Gordon aimed to make a higher quality gin using the finest botanicals and chose London’s Southwark, renowned for its crisp, clean water supply, for the location of his distillery. He created a gin using a secret recipe of juniper berries, coriander seeds, angelica root and liquorice, which became one of the most sought-after drinks in the Gin Palaces of London, eventually earning Royal Warrants.
In 1865 Gordon & Co, introduced a new column still named Old Tom, which meant distillation could be continuous, an innovative design of the Industrial Revolution. Over 160 years later, Old Tom continues to be used in the production of Gordon’s Gin at their distillery in Scotland.
