I watched a video by Philip Duff on the history of gin – is gin the British interpretation of Dutch genever? Or does it come from a more or less independent distilling tradition since British spirits were usually based on a neutral base distillate?
I watched a seminar by Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller that claims independence and wrote about that here.
Phil Duff adds some new information about the historical use of botanics in genever and on Dutch distilling styles.
Duff cites a couple key pieces of information:
- The most popular style of distillation in Holland was not distilling a beer mash with botanicals one single time [which leads some to the conclusion that gin, based on a neutral spirit base, was born independently of Holland] but 2 distillations then a third with botanicals, which is essentially how gin is made.
- The Distiller of London contains a recipe that looks like gin but is more of an expensive medicinal liqueur, and a book published after it to "correct the mistakes" in it says differently
And thus he concludes basically that gin was invented in England after column distillation comes on boaord in the early 1800s, but it's a direct line of invention from Dutch distilling/genever.
Click the link above for Jared/Anistatia's first video, then watch Phil's video below.