Gin has a long and rich history. And here is everything you need to know about the history of Britain's best loved drink - Gin & Tonic.

The Dutch ‘Era' (or How the Brits Discovered Gin)



The Brits abroad ‘Era’ (or How the G&T Became Popular)

A post shared by Jörg Müller (@joermue) on Jul 10, 2018 at 12:51pm PDT

First created inin theas a form of, it was called(fun fact alert: that’s the Dutch word for juniper!), and was very different to the (usually) clear, juniper-forward spirit that we’ve come to know and love as Gin today.In the, juniper, along with botanicals such as star anise and coriander seed, was believed to have medical properties, and was distilled with malt spirit to create Genever. By the middle of the century, Gin was huge, with somealone!During the Thirty Years War fighting on Dutch land, (fun fact alert #2: it was nicknamed ‘Dutch courage’ because the fearless Dutch army all had a Gin ration they’d drink before going into battle) and brought it back to England.It; by 1720, it’s been estimated that as many as ain London wereSkip forward several decades - past any Tom, Dick or Harry making Gin in their bathtub and flavouring it with turpentine, past the ‘Gin Craze’ which coined the term ‘’ in the mid 18th century, and past several major legislative acts to restrict the production of poor quality Gin - to, when the, and Brits headed for warmer climes in their droves.They used bitter tasting, extracted from cinchona bark, to. It was made into a tonic by dissolving it in water and adding sugar to sweeten it. Once the nation’s favourite spirit was added, the Brits were left with a drink that tasted pretty darn good, and stopped them getting ill. Win, win!Tonic back then was more heavily infused with quinine than it is today (fun fact #3: you’d need to drink 67 litres of Gin and Tonic a day in order to have a dose of quinine strong enough to prevent malaria), soon your next trip, no matter how many G&Ts you drink.