By Kirsten Amann, freelance writer, lifestyle publicist, and founding member of the Boston chapter of Ladies United for the Preservation of Endangered Cocktails (LUPEC Boston).

White-coated pharmacists may be the last thing modern drinkers think of when mixing up a cocktail to sip casually. But did you know that many key ingredients of modern mixology owe their history to medicine? Consider the following.

Muslim scholars Geber and Avicenna made groundbreaking advancements in the technology of alcohol distillation in the 8th and 9th centuries. The Qur’an’s stipulation that “the righteous man does not drink wine” suggests these chemists weren’t imbibing, but rather messing around with stills and distilling in pursuit of medicine and perfume.

Some spirits were engineered with medicinal purposes in mind. Gin, for example, was created when Arnaud de Villanova sought to harness the healthful properties of the juniper berry, believed to be an excellent aid for the kidneys. And history’s first liqueurs were invented to combat intestinal problems and difficult digestion. The quinine ones also helped keep scurvy at bay.

Bitters were also born of medical necessity, perhaps most obviously because we still reach for it to aid stomach ailments today. In 1690, British apothecary Richard Stoughton began bottling his cure-all “Elixir Magnum Somachicum”, a.k.a. “Stoughton’s Great Cordial Elixir”, a highly concentrated tonic, made of a proprietary blend of ingredients and marketed to remedy just about everything. Allegedly capable of rectifying the stomach from its indispositions and cleansing the blood from its impurities, the stuff flew off the shelves. A teaspoon of that with a glass of beer, sherry, or a dram of brandy, was akin to taking your morning vitamins.

In the case of the Sazerac, the official cocktail of New Orleans, all roads lead back to the pharmacy: the back of Creole apothecary Antoine Amadee Peychaud’s pharmacy, to be exact. He served his mixture of Sazerac de Forge et Fils brandy (the spirit du moment) and his signature Peychaud’s bitters to fellow masons there in off hours in the 1830s.

Later generations added absinthe to the drink, a spirit that owes some measure of its popularity to healthful preservation, administered to French soldiers fighting in Africa as a treatment for malaria and to sterilize their water. Soldiers brought their newfound taste for the green elixir home to France, where the popularity of absinthe soared.

 

From alcohol to award winning cocktails

 

Alcohol has always been present in a natural form, and I can almost imagine a heard of Dinos walking unsafely around being intoxicated by the intake of hundreds of kilos of processed fruit at beer strength.

 

In newer times you probably have heard about drunken Elephants raging through villages, or been stuck by a Wasp yourself, that has been enjoying too much cider from the fallen fruits in the beginning of the autumn. And maybe you have had a beer in Brussels, fermented naturally from the yeast in the air?

Anyway – the history of gin begins around 3000 BC when Egyptians find out how to distill alcohol from fermented fruit or grain in Alembics (pots) to extract essential oils from botanicals for making medicine and cosmetics (“al kohl” = “eye shadow” in Egyptian).

600 AD Arabs introduce the distillation process to the southern Europe, and Irish monks bring it up through the continent and back to the British Isles.

 

1269 First major mention of juniper-based health-related tonics and medicine in a Dutch publication in “Der Naturen Bloeme” by Jacob van Maerlant te Damme.

 

1462 First written proof of organized distilling from grain is from a note saying that an Irish monk buys a cup of malted barley.

 

1500 Alcohol is commonly used all over Europe, and is being made with various ingredients. These drinks are mostly known as “eau de vie” or “aqua vitae” – the water of life. In Celtic water of life is “uisge beathe”, and “uisge” is soon pronounced as “whisky”.

 

1552 First mention of “genever aqua vitae” – a juniper infused brandy by Philippus Hermanni.

 

1557 The first known Danish recipe for spicy “aqua vitae” is being made, today known as “akvavit” or “snaps”.

 

1582 First mention of grain used a basis for distilling in the Netherlands in “A Guide To Distilling” by Casper Jansz.

 

1602 Dutch soldiers are sailing around the world and receive a daily half-pint ration of “genever”.�
 

1650 Dr. Franz de la Boë, professor in medicine at the University of Leyden in Holland, creates the “Jenever”, a commercial product made from Juniper berries, to be used as medicine against kidney problems (“Jeneverbes” = “Juniper berries” in Dutch).

 

1665 During the Anglo–Dutch Wars Dutch soldiers fight beastly, encouraged by the intake of “Genever”, and English soldiers adopt the recipe for this “Dutch courage” and bring it home to England.

 

1690 King William III of England, also known as William of Orange, want to promote the local production of “Genever”, and he introduces the ” Distilling Act” that forbids the import of wine and spirit.

 

1736 ”Genever” has been abbreviated to ”Gin” and the demand is so high, that the English government has to introduce the “Gin Act” that puts on high taxes on gin. This causes huge riots and the act is being withdrawn.
 

1740 At that time gin was made simple on pot stills and the quality was often very bad, so it was common to add sugar to improve the taste. And to improve the quality, the “Tippling Act” was introduced to force the distillers to make a purer gin. Still there were no specific gin brands, and gin was referred to as Old Tom after a device that was shaped as a cat and used for pouring gin.

 

 1758 Now the people of London couldn’t even buy bread because all the grain of England was being used for distilling gin, and the government had to ban the making of gin for two years.

1761 The distilling went on and it’s quite uncertain which of the distillers was first with a product that is similar of what we know today. But we do know that the first gin brand is Booth’s from 1740, and that Bombay made the first commercial gin recipe in 1761. Here are more old recipes that are being used as references on newer products:

 

1769 Gordons refer to this secret recipe by Mr. Alexander Gordon in Clerkenwell, London.

1771 Citadelle, a recipe from a distillery in Dunkirk, France.

 

1776 Hammer, a recipe imported by Mr. Alexander Blixt to Hammer, Norway.

 

1785 London Hill, a new gin on an old recipe by Ian Macleod Distillers, Scotland.

 

1793 Plymouth by Mr. William Coates at the Black Friars distillery, Plymouth. 

1798 Cork Grimson Gin by Mr. William Caldwell at the Watercourse Distillery, Ireland.  

 

1820 Beefeater by Mr. James Burroughs at the Beefeater distillery, London.

 

1839 Tanqueray by Mr. Charles Tanqueray, Bloomsbury.

 

Most of the distilleries were located near to a harbor from where the ships brought in all the special ingredients for gin. Also being near to fresh water was essential for the production of gin.

 

Here’s a simple illustration of how the two still methods work:

 

Today there are four categories of gin: London Gin is where the botanicals are being distilled with the last run, and it doesn’t matter where it’s made. Distilled Gin is when essential oils are added after the distillation. Plymouth Gin has it’s own “appellation” and the last category is the Old Tom Gin. Overall is the definition of gin by EU regulations: a spirit at minimum 37.5% ABV where the predominant ingredient is juniper.

 

1862 A progressive bartender from San Francisco, Jerry Thomas, sees the potential in gin and invents several famous cocktails such as the Martini, Gin Sling, Tom Collins and Gin Fizz, and soon gin became the preferred spirit for making cocktails.

 

1870 Schweppes Co. introduce the Tonic Water that soon becomes popular with the British in India as it contains quinine, used as a preventative measure against malaria. Mixed with Gin the G&T is born.

 

1874 A joke about a Tom Collins in New York became so common that Jerry Thomas named a drink after this, which he describes in 1876 in his “The Bartender’s Guide” as a Tom Collins made with either whisky, brandy or gin.

1896 At the Savoy Hotel in London Thomas Stuart invents the original Dry Martini Cocktail, where the measures of gin exceed the Noilly Prat vermouth by ten times or more.

1915 At the Raffles Hotel in Singapore bartender Ngiam Tong Boon creates an advanced version of the Gin sling, the Singapore Gin Sling, where another main ingredient is the Danish Heering Cherry Liqueur.

1928 With the Gin Gimlet the first cocktail era was about to end and Prohibition, Wall Street and World War II kept the demand for cocktails low for many decades.

 

1962 A new cocktail era is about to begin when a certain Mr. James Bond asks for a Vodka Martini in the movie Dr. No from 1962. And would gin have been nr. 1. instead of vodka if Mr. Bond had asked for the original Dry Martini Cocktail?
 

Today the art of making cocktails has escalated to higher stages, and especially gin is being used for new and exciting cocktails, winning almost any award in the cocktail competitions around the world.

 

Also new and exciting gin’s are being introduced and I believe that gin within a short while will regain the position as the most preferred spirit for cocktails …