Hi my name's Kevin Hicks welcome to my YouTube channel The History Squad. Now today's video is
all about the history of gin, the beginnings of gin, how it went from Mother's Ruin all the way
through to the beautiful cocktails that we have today. Now we're not in my basement studio,,
you've probably noticed. In fact I'm very, very lucky to have an award-winning gin distillery
right on my doorstep. Black Fox Distillery in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan right on the prairies
of Canada. The reason I'm here is this is a bit of a historical thing because we're going
to turn a full circle of history, so let's get on, the history of gin. So the history of gin,
let's have a look at the origins. First of all for gin you need grain and juniper berries
unless you're in China 4,000 years ago when they learned to distill spirit from rice
and then at the time of Christ, the birth of Christ, you have Maria. Now this is a legend
right, Maria the Jewess, who had learned how to distill grain. Now this is where there is often
a little bit of a complication because white grain spirit in history, simple grain, is often
referred to as gin but it's not true gin unless it has juniper in it, just remember that a little
bit because the juniper itself is used in so many ways. The ancient Egyptians, they used it for all
these different herbal tonics they even used it when they did the embalming yeah. The Romans knew
about it, the Greeks knew about it, but how about the Benedictine monks. 11th century I think it was
in Salerno in southern Italy. They realized that this is actually a lovely tonic and it will help
perk you up and they started to record, in Latin of course, all of these secrets of the juniper and
the spirits. Aquavita the water of life yeah, this is one of the names. And then Pope John the 21st,
mid 13th century, using white spirit juniper, he had a tonic for washing your eyes which I think
is great because it will clear your eyes but of course if you put alcohol in your eyes. Don't
do that at home please! It will actually get you a little bit drunk, but the guy who is actually
accredited and I come across so many complications when I was researching on this. Sylvias de la Boa.
1572. He was a professor of alchemy medicine and stuff um he is credited to actually distilling
gin properly with the grain and with the juniper berries, however as I'm reading it like somebody
says no, no it wasn't him it was Francois Sylvia and I'm thinking all right then so
it's the beginning. 1572 it's the full beginning of the distilling, manufacture of gin in Europe.
It's not called gin actually it's called geneva, which is the Dutch word for gin.
Interestingly in the 17th century, England, gin as we know it was medicinal. I do know
that under the kingship of Charles the first he'd encourage the manufacture the distilling
of gin so it was getting a bit of a royal name to it there, and they were all over Europe there
were these gin based drinks that were tonics and one fascinating person is Nicholas Culpepper,
still a famous name in Apothecary to this very day. Just after the English Civil War 1652
he has got it into his mind that medicine and the treating of, of illnesses the knowledge of
it should be available to everyone. He wrote a book called The English physician about treating
yourselves with things that grow in England. So according to Nicholas Culpepper things that
can grow in the fields of England uh can cure various ailments, illnesses. I've got a list here
do excuse me reading. Juniper can cure coughs, consumption, consumption tuberculosis, cramps,
shortness of breath, it's written down childbirth so gin can cure childbirth. Actually I should
imagine that means a troubled childbirth yeah one that's painful. Memory, it can help improve
memory. I will tell you this, if I have more than two gins it doesn't help my memory. It can
strengthen the optic nerves, cure sciatica, gout and helps improve modern decrepitude.
Which is great isn't it but that's how we learn, through history isn't it. But at this time
Holland and the low countries were becoming the experts in gin production and that's
the next part of our story. So the Dutch connection, Holland 1688. William of Orange,
he was married to our King James's daughter, he was invited over he brought an army of 21
000 troops all of whom would be well familiar with a drop of Geneva. So it's come across. Now
I don't know if William of Orange when he became the King William III and William and Mary that era
if he drank gin but what I do know is he did like to have a good drink with his courtiers
and was often found unconscious drunk by the servants. So I reckon there was a bit of gin
in there somewhere. So the 17th century and then going into the 18th century they were blighted by
some terrible wars. We'd had the 30 Years War yeah, we'd had the English Civil War and then
the wars of the Spanish succession after these there was an animosity between England and France,
so the English government come up with the idea let's tax French red wine, let's tax Brandy from
France, let's encourage people to drink geneva, gin. So there was increased production. People,
patriotic are going to drink more gin, but then as you get more um demand for gin there's more
demand for grain so the price the prices of grain begin to fluctuate. Meanwhile the people
are wanting more of this gin. And then the East India Company beats the Dutch East India company
into certain parts of India so they can now bring with them exotic botanicals they can
add to the juniper so now we have different kinds of gin that are coming out but of course the more
you promote the consumption of the alcohol, the more problems you're storing up for the future.
So what happened was as more demand for gin, especially in the poor areas and the dock areas
Portsmouth, East End of London, Norwich as well, there were gin shops springing up, so you could
just pop in and you could get yourself a jug of gin. Incidentally this also led to bread shortages
because the grain was being diverted and used in the process of distilling gin. Farmers make their
own gin from what was left over crop of grain, but if they can make more money from gin they will use
more of their crop, so bread yields are lower and therefore the person who owns the bread shop is
not making as much money doesn't have the supplies this goes up and down until the gentry started to
object because they were the farmers who were losing out on their grain crop for bread. And
one magistrate he describes how lawless London, the East End of London was becoming. How men
were literally drunk and aggressive in the street and he called gin nothing more than a street drug.
So this all led to the gin craze, the first half of the 18th century London, there were some other
outbreaks as I mentioned, Portsmouth, Norwich, the rest of the country seemed to be clear of the gin
craze, it was centered on London, and you can understand it when you look at how people lived
in the East End of London, it was diabolical. You could starve to death on the street, people would
simply step over you. Mothers with children trying to work would have their babies looked after by a
wet nurse and the wet nurse would squirt gin into their mouths to keep them quiet. They call it a
posset of gin, which is gin mixed with milk to feed the babies. You had midwives who would come
round to help with the birth but these were gin sodden old ladies. Poverty, starvation,
disease, led to crime, prostitution. The streets were disgusting, they were filthy, nobody seemed
to care and one way out is a good drop of gin. Now at that time if you owned a brewery and you
distilled gin you had to have tables and chairs undercover and you had to supply food as well or
have food or offer. But then you have your gin shops, the unscrupulous people who manufactured
their own gin but it wasn't gin and as I said to you earlier on, gin has to have junipers,
yes it's a grain-based alcohol but to be gin it has to have juniper berries, and some of
those gin shops, the unscrupulous stills, there was no juniper berries in there. There was um,
oil of turpentine, sulfuric acid, oil of almonds, ginger, pepper to make it bite, fire water. Then
they added sugar to it so it was palatable to women. So you live in the East End of London, you
have no hope, your life is nothing but misery, but a good tot of gin, it'll lift you a little bit.
You could purchase a pint of gin far cheaper than a pint of ale. The Middlesex magistrates were
complaining so much about the brazen criminals, something had to be done. It was by 1735 six
million gallons of gin were being drunk in England every year. That's over two gallons per person,
that means man, woman and child. We had massive problems. The government, 1757 actually banned all
illegal stills. They offered a five pound reward to anybody who would tell them where there was a
still in operation, but if you did that you might find yourself with your slope, your throat slit,
these were tough times. But you then move over to the military the navy, Nelson's navy,
the Napoleonic Wars. End of the 1700s beginning of the 1800s your sailors drank rum, they took
lime juice to ward off scurvy, but the officers Admiral Nelson, Lord Nelson and his men they had
oak barrels of gin. So I wonder when they drank their gin in the mess deck and all of that kind
of stuff, was it the same as this? We got some here, award-winning Oaked Gin. Look at the color,
yeah? So did Nelson have this oak-stained gin just the same as this? History turning
full circle isn't it? I can imagine his men saying, oh there's a nice gin and tonic and
all of that kind of stuff and his men drinking the old rum. But on the battlefield of Waterloo
you imagine the thousands of British soldiers looking down the hill as the tens of thousands
of French soldiers are coming up the hill, drums are beating, flags are waving, they're cavalry the
artillery and those British redcoats stood there. And then their Sergeant comes along dishing out a
good mug of gin. And I love the line from the film The Battle of Waterloo uh 1971 I think it was,
and it's the Inniskilling Fusiliers and that stood there and um the sergeant's
going "Get this down inside of you because the French will have it out of you soon enough."
That's courage isn't it? Geneva, gin, eve of the battle that Dutch drink, Dutch courage I like
that. But then through the Victorian times there's a resurgence with the poverty going on in London
of gins yeah? The gin palaces, these the gin shops but all around the Empire you now have settlements
of, of British government officials shall we call them that, in the Raj in India. Of an
evening time they will have a gin and tonic. The gin for the juniper, the tonic for the quinine for
helping with malaria and night cramps. This whole thing is coming together and then Singapore 1915,
the barman there, Mgian Tong Boon.
He puts a mixture of gin together uh pineapple, lime, Curacao and
Benedictine, it's a Singapore Sling. My wife Julie,, behind the camera there she went to
Raffles Hotel to the Long Bar and was really disappointed because they don't mix it fresh,
they have it shipped in as a concentrate. What a disappointment.
What fascinates me about being sat here in in the center of the Black Fox Distillery
is I'm surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of bottles of gin, and it was the British government
in its attempts to regulate the sale of gin which forbade the selling of gin in casks, you could
only sell it in a glass bottle and I love that because I'm actually sat in the middle of a farm.
Think about it Black Fox Distillery, it's a farm they grow flowers they grow pumpkins they grow
90 percent of the ingredients they need for their award-winning gin. They also recycle
so much stuff, all the mash from the grain when it's finished with it's put back into the ground
as fertilizer. They recycle 95 percent of the water they use for the gin. I do wonder
does that make some of the flowers a bit drunk yeah, but anyway their gin, their Oak Cask gin,
so this is the stuff that Nelson would have drunk. It was the world's best cask gin for the World Gin
Awards, 2017. That's not bad for a place in the middle of the prairies in the middle of Canada.
Think about that, that's quite fantastic in my book, a local firm doing incredibly
well on the world stage. So when you look at everything I've put into this film it would
seem that gin, geneva has actually turned full circle and come of age, cheers.
I hope you enjoyed that video if you did like, share and subscribe and don't forget
to turn on the all notification button because you never know what kind of film,
what kind of history film is coming down the line from The History Squad. But before I
go, a special mention to Black Fox Distillery. We've had so much fun shooting on location,
now if you're interested in any of their award-winning gins there is
a link in the description. So for now, bye and thank you very much.