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    Drinks

    Gin

    Juniper and botanicals, from Dutch genever to London Dry

    Gin and genever share a berry — juniper — but they are not the same drink. Genever grew from the distilling traditions of the Low Countries, built on malt wine; gin took shape in England, through the excesses of the Gin Craze, the column still and the dry London style. This atlas follows both, the botanicals that flavour them, the methods that extract those flavours and the legal categories that define them today.

    Where an "inventor" appears only in later legend, the page says so.

    Daylit gin distillery with a copper pot still linked to a condenser, and a wooden table holding dried juniper berries, coriander seeds, lemon peel, an unlabelled bottle and a tasting glass of clear spirit.

    The history

    Open the timeline →
    Drink historyFrom juniper water to London ginJuniper was a medicine in the medieval Low Countries long before it flavoured a drink. Grain spirit with juniper became genever there in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. England took it up after 1688, went through the Gin Craze and the Gin Acts, and later turned gin into a cleaner, drier spirit defined today in EU law.Read the history →
    1. Early modern1690Act encouraging distilling from corn (1690)
    2. 1729Gin Act of 1729
    3. 1736Gin Act of 1736
    4. 25 June 1751Gin Act of 1751
    5. 1 February 1751Hogarth's Gin Lane (1751)
    6. Our times15 January 2008EU spirit drinks regulation (2008)
    7. 17 April 2019 (applies from 25 May 2021)EU spirit drinks regulation (2019)

    Styles & categories

    8

    Regions

    6

    Makers & institutions

    3

    Ingredients & botanicals

    See all (9) →

    Methods

    4

    By country

    6

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