Martini Spash (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
1) It Has A Fuzzy Definition
When you’re dealing with most types of spirits, the definition doesn't leave much much wiggle room in. That’s because most of the requisites for calling a product bourbon or Scotch or tequila—ingredients, process, location of origin—are fairly cut and dry.
Not so with gin, which is defined by its flavor: It has to "predominantly" taste like juniper. But without a governing body to determine whether a batch of the liquid tastes more like juniper than, say, cucumber or citrus (two common flavors that weave themselves into gin products), this definition is entirely a subjective one.
In other words: What’s gin to me may not be gin to you. And there is nothing old-school gin-makers love more than to gripe that some newfangled "gins" aren't actually gin. (Honestly: They kinda have a point.)
2) Why Gins Can Taste So Different
Unlike vodka, which is made from nothing more than unflavored alcohol and water, there is enormous diversity in how different gins taste. For that, you can thank the fact that each distiller uses a different recipe. While gin must have a strong juniper flavor to it (and thus tends to involve juniper berries), distillers are free to add any other botanicals they like to achieve their target taste. Citrus, nuts, and spices all commonly find their way into gin recipes.
3) How Gin Gets Its Flavor
There are two primary ways to flavor your gin: You can either add flavors to a distilled spirit and bottle it, or you can infuse botanicals into the spirit by distilling them together. Depending on your chosen method, you get a different kind of gin, and a different flavor profile.
For example, if you want to qualify as so-called “London gin” (think: Beefeater), you are only allowed to flavor your spirit through the distillation process. This is obviously more difficult to do then simply spiking your spirit with a flavoring compound, but the style is revered by gin purists.
4) Few Gin Distillers Make Their Own Alcohol
Gin usually starts with neutral spirit: A commodity that gin distillers buy in bulk. It’s what the distiller does with this commodity in the flavor-infusing process that makes each gin different.
5) Juniper Is Still Picked Wild
The gin industry uses massive amounts of juniper berries. Surprisingly, these little guys are not widely cultivated: They are usually picked wild by independent workers throughout Europe, and sold via distributors to the gin makers of the world.
6) It Was Used To Battle Malaria
Imagine you’re an old-timey sailor venturing into the malaria-ridden tropics. Quinine-containing tonic water will help ward off the parasite, but boy does it taste bitter! One way to make it more palatable: Mix it with gin. According to legend, this is how the gin and tonic was born.
Today, most commercial tonic waters contain very little-to-no actual quinine. In fact, taking too much of the stuff can cause a mostly reversible (and extremely terrifying!) condition called cinchonism, which can involve deafness, nausea, vertigo. Ouch!
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Seth Porges is a writer and co-creator of Cloth for iOS. For more fun, follow Seth on Twitter at @sethporges, or subscribe to him on Facebook or Google+.
