Welcome to Tasting history with Max Miller where
today we will be Drinking History with Max Miller. I am Max Miller and believe it or not I
have not had anything to drink yet today. Luckily, gin is my favorite spirit so I will
be showing you how to make a fascinating gin cocktail from 1884. So thank you to Audible
for sponsoring this video as we follow gin's journey from Dutch battlefields to the London
gin craze and beyond. This time on Tasting History. Today's recipe comes from George Winter's
1884 How to Mix Drinks Bar Keepers Handbook. "Gin Cocktail. Two to three dashes of gum syrup, one
to two dashes of orinoco bitters, two dashes of absinthe, one wine glass holland gin. Fill with fine
ice. Stir well. Squeeze from a lemon peel on top and serve." Seems quite simple, though a lot of those
ingredients are not necessarily something that you're going to find at most modern day liquor
stores but you can get everything online. First we got gum syrup. Now we have simple syrup
today which is just basically sugar and water that's been boiled, but gum syrup adds gum arabic
and supposedly gives a softer silkier texture to the cocktail we'll see. Next up orinoco bitters. Now these are named after a Venezuelan river so naturally they were made in New England, and in the Barkeeper's Handbook there is an ad that claims they're superior to any angostura in the world. Angostura bitters being what we typically use today. I have both so i'm going to do a little bit
of a taste test here. First, angostura bitters which my palette should already know. Very bitter. A little bit of a cinnamon-y quality to them. Quite interesting wouldn't want
too many. And now for the orinoco bitters. I feel like uh Mary Poppins dulling out her
spoonful of sugar. ♪ Just a spoonful of bitters ♪ Very different. Gosh it has more like a a
spicy cardamom flavor. They remind me, yeah very much of like Indian food. I kind of like
them better maybe they should make a comeback. Then we have absinthe La Fée Verte - the green fairy. A largely misunderstood and oft-romanticized liquor that supposedly tastes like fennel
but I think we should give it a shot. Now this has been outlawed in the United States
for 80 years and I think it was probably 13 years 14 years ago they allowed it to make a comeback. So
i'm going to just take a tiny tiny little bit here. Oh yeah that that tastes like black licorice. A
little bit goes a long way. What's interesting is as you can see, maybe, it's clear but when you add
it to another liquor it becomes foggy and that's really when the green fairy kind of shows u. And lastly genever, or jenever, or genièvre or genieve. They all work. And a lot of people today would
say that this is not a gin but we'll show you why historically it absolutely is and technically it
absolutely is. So if you're going to have that argument which i'm sure many people will please
have it in the comments section. Now I love gin, and right away I can tell this is not going to
taste like gin but let's let's give it a shot. *Grows hair on chest It's actually really, really smooth. You can
taste the juniper which is essential for gin and we'll get into that but there's
also like a carmeliness to it almost- I don't know. Almost like a hint of whiskey was
added, or some something like that. It's quite nice, quite smooth but if somebody orders a
gin and tonic don't put this in there. Now there are tons of types of gin in the world. You got tom gin, you got botanical gin, your classic London dry, and there's even one called milk gin. My favorite
being Birth Is Revenge. If you can get it, get it. Sadly I don't have time to go into all of the gins
of the world but if you want a gin deep dive might I suggest The Book of Gin on Audible. Audible is truly one of my favorite things in this world. I have belonged to Audible for now over 10 years and
I listen to audiobooks almost daily. They're great because I do a lot of reading research-wise for
the show so when I'm able to do the research or even just listen for fun you know when I'm out
on a walk or in the car it's just such a relief on my eyes and on my brain frankly. And recently
they've added their Plus catalog so in addition to your monthly audiobook credit you also get
access to thousands of additional audiobooks as well as podcasts, Audible originals, and these sleep
tracks which I really, really need to try because [Jose snores] I am starting to notice I'm getting bags as people
have pointed out. But lately I have been listening to Sapiens A Brief History of Humankind. It is absolutely fascinating and the narrator Derek Perkins has the most soothing British accent.
Frankly you will feel smarter after listening to it. So visit audible.com/tastinghistory
or text tasting history to 500-500 to start your free 30-day trial. There's also a link in
the description audible.com/tastinghistory and speaking of Tasting History before I taste
this historical cocktail let us talk about the history of gin while i finish up what i've
already poured. Nothing should go to waste. So what is gin? It's just an alcoholic
liquor made by distilling grain mash with juniper berries. Everything else is
gravy (don't put gravy in your gin though ). Now nobody knows exactly when that distilled grain
alcohol came about but in the west at least it was most likely made using an alembic still and nobody
knows who invented the alembic still but the two leading candidates are both women with interesting
names from between the first and third century AD. Cleopatra the alchemist or another alchemist named
Mary the Jewess. Probably did not come up with that name herself. Either way next time you take a shot
you can thank a woman from the ancient near east. So they used alembic stills to perform alchemy
to make alcoholic spirits all coming from Arabic words. And really it was the Arabic world where
that flourished until European alchemists in the middle ages started using them to make aquavita
or the water of life which is basically just pure alcohol. Now for the juniper berries mentions
of their medicinal qualities especially when added to alcohol are mentioned in Dioscorides from the 1st
century AD as well as the 11th century Compendium Solernita. Where Benedictine monks would use it
for chest ailments and later on it was used to cure the black death though it didn't work and for
other cures that didn't work for the plague see my video up here. But the first Dutch mention, and
it's important that its Dutch, we'll get there, was in 1269 when Jacob von Maerlant wrote "He who wants to be rid of stomach pain used juniper cooked in rainwater. He who has cramps cooked juniper in wine.
It's good against the pain." Side note that is from the document called Der naturen bloeme. One manuscript of which has my favorite image of an elephant. So you got your aquavita ,you got your juniper
berries, put them together and what have you got bippity boppity gin, except it wasn't called gin
yet. In an early writing from 1552 it's called genièvre later spelled jenever, or genever. Now for much of the
16th and 17th century the Protestant Dutch were fighting for their independence from Catholic
Spain. It was a complicated time called the 80 Years War which encompassed the 12 Years Truce, and
the 30 Years War. Terrible marketing, lots of brand confusion. So the story goes that at some point in
that time when the English were fighting alongside their Protestant brethren against Catholic Spain
and religion is very important in this, they noticed that the Dutch would take a swig of genever
right before they went into battle. Hence the term Dutch courage... probably. Sometimes it comes
from a different war and sometimes it... you know it might not have happened at all
but it's a good story and i'm sticking to it. Either way the English brought it back home where
one of its main uses is documented by Samuel Pepys. "I took strong water made of juniper. Whether that
or anything else of my draft this morning did it I cannot tell, but I had a couple of stools forced
after it." I don't see that appearing in a Tanqueray ad any time soon, but the Dutch would soon show
England that there was more to gin than just its diuretic capabilities because a few decades
later when the Catholic James II was excised from the throne of England he was replaced by the Dutch Protestant William of Orange of William and mary fame, and being Dutch he drank genver so it
became quite a popular cordial amongst the upper crust. Also he imposed harsh taxes on imports
from Catholic countries which included France, so goodbye wine and brandy. Hello gin. And the
drink got another boost when in 1690 parliament passed an act for encouraging the distilling of
brandy and spirits from corn and some people made brandy but most people made gin because it was a
lot cheaper. So cheap that a pint of gin actually became cheaper than a pint of ale or beer. There are stories of people drinking a pint of gin a day. Do you know what happens if you drink a pint of
gin a day? Well Bernard Mandeville in 1714 gives us an idea. "Nothing is more destructive, either in
regard to the health or the vigilance and industry of the poor, than the infamous liquor, the name
of which, derived from Juniper in Dutch, is now, by frequent use, and the laconic spirit of the
nation... shrunk into the monosyllable, intoxicating gin that charms the inactive, the desperate
and crazy of either sex, and makes the starving sot behold his rags and nakedness with stupid
indolence, or banter both in senseless laughter, and more insipid jests! It is a fiery lake that
sets the brain in flame, burns up the entrails, and scorches every part within." Clearly a whiskey drinker but with that last part he was actually kind of right because with everybody and their
mother making gin the quality really took a dive. People were adding sulfuric acid and turpentine
in quantities larger than than one probably should. And it actually kicked off something called the
London gin craze where fully one-fourth of the population of London was involved somehow in
either the production or distribution of gin. During frost fairs, which were affairs that took
place on the river Thames when it would freeze over, it was a lot colder back then, hot gin and
gingerbread were sold to all as clearly most of London did not agree with that stick in the mud
Bernard Mandeville at first. But very soon gin took a bit of a hit in the reputation department. First of all it had gone from being drank by the king, to being drank by the poor because it was
so cheap. And then it really took a hit in 1734 when Judith Defour was hanged at Tyburn. Her crime? Drunk on gin and unable to afford any more she and a friend picked up her two-year-old
daughter from the workhouse where she had been and had been given new clothes, and in the words
of Judith from her own trial, "We took the child into the fields and stripped it, and tied a linen handkerchief hard about its neck to keep it from crying, and then laid it in a ditch. And after that
we went together and sold the coat and stay for a shiling, and the petticoat and stockings for
a groat. We parted the money and joined for a quartern of gin." That incident understandably really
shook London to its core and forced Parliament to pass the Gin Act of 1736 which did put some taxes
and regulation on who could actually make it. You had to have a license but it didn't really work
because the gin craze just kept on crazing, but public opinion really turned a corner in 1751 when William Hogarth printed two engravings called Beer Street and Gin Lane. In Beer Street women are seen selling fish and reading, while smiling men paint works of art and build new buildings beside which a wealthy woman is carried through the street in a sedan chair. Meanwhile in Gin Lane a mother
with syphilitic sores mindlessly drops her child down a stairwell as she reaches for a pinch of
snuff. While a man nearby shares a bone with a dog. Buildings are crumbling and a barber has hanged
himself as no one can afford his services, for they've spent all of their coin on gin.
Perhaps most disturbing though is the man dancing in the street carrying a child impaled on
a pole now... Surely there was some exaggeration in Hogarth's work, but it did what it was meant
to do and Parliament passed another gin act which actually worked this time, and gin lost favor
and the gin craze ended, but it actually made for an interesting chapter in gin's history which was the underground selling of Old Tom Gin. Essentially a bartender would put like a plaque of an old black tomcat on the outside of the bar like out on the street, and then there would be a little tube
going from the cat's paw or sometimes its mouth into the bar. Somebody would walk up put a coin
into the cat and then it would come into the bar, and the bartender would pour a shot of this Old
Tom Gin which was a sweeter gin than the modern London dry gin. It's actually really quite
nice uh it would go down and then the person would be waiting there with their glass or just their
mouth to catch it. Kind of interesting, and it was actually that style of gin that was really popular
during the 19th century before London-style dry gin really took over. It was also the mid-19th century that gin started to make a bit of a comeback with gin palaces frequented by the upper
middle class, Dickens described them as perfectly dazzling when contrasted with the darkness and
dirt we have just left. It also became a popular drink with the military, because in certain parts
of the world where they were having problems with malaria they were given quinine, and/or quinine
and they would it was really bitter so they would add a little bit of tonic water and a little bit
of gin in there to kill the flavor hence the GNT, or the gin and tonic, and you put a little bit of
lime in there and it helps with scurvy too. That's actually where the gimlet started was they
found if they put the lime into the gin before they even left for port it would preserve for a
lot longer. Now in the U.S. gin had been popular for quite some time but it really took off when it
was banned, because in the 1920s during Prohibition bathtub gin became popular for the same reason
it had been popular 200 years earlier in England. It was cheap and easy to make. Again, it tasted
horrible but that is where we get a lot of the wonderful cocktails that we know today made as
a way to cover up the taste of the bad gin but when it comes to taste lots of flavored gins
have popped up over the years including sloe gin made with sloe berries, and one of my favorites
Pimms, which has added citrus and spices, but if you have a truly quality gin it's really
all you need because in the words of Winston Churchill "I would like to observe the vermouth from
across the room while I drink my martin." Yeah I know I can't do Churchill, but unlike Churchill's
martini our cocktail today is definitely mixed, and I am ready to do it. So once you have all of
your ingredients just mix them together in a glass. Note that the 19th century measurement a wine
glass of holland gin is only about one and a half ounces or a jigger. It varies depending on
when and where it is but it is not one of these, [don't limit yourself - Jose] so don't fill this up with gin. That is for a
different kind of cocktail. Then add some ice, squeeze a little lemon rind over it, and bottoms up
the gin cocktail of 1884. Cheers! Very aromatic. Oh I like that. Definitely go light on the absinthe, like really
light, because that is going to cut through more than anything else that really strong licorice
fennel flavor, but it's really, really nice and smooth and when I say smooth, I mean physically
smooth and I think it's because of that gum syrup, the gum arabic. It's almost... slick but not in a weird way it's really quite nice. I usually go for a sweeter drink. This is not
that sweet. You could probably make it sweeter adding even more gum syrup but I already
put in quite a bit but it's it's really good I would drink this, though if I
went into a bar today and ordered this I would um get kicked out unless I was at one of
those hipster bars maybe in Los Feliz. So make sure to follow me on Instagram, Twitter and TikTokand. Don't forget to sign up for your free trial of Audible at the link in the description. And I will see you next time on Drinking H- Tasting History.
Speaking of Audible, /u/jmaxmiller should narrate an audio book. His recitations of historic notes are delightful.
The drink is not my favorite since we prefer, but it is oddly smooth. Now if you have any kind of aversion to black licorice flavor, stay away :x
If anyone's interested, genever/jenever is pronounced kind of like "yen-ay-ver" in Dutch. Or at least, that's the way I've always heard it pronounced.
And I hate to sound like a stick in the mud, but I actually think the version in the video (what Bols sells in the US) isn't a very good jenever, although I'm hardly an expert. It tastes way less malty than most old-style jenevers I've had and has more botanicals. They also upped the alcohol content (Dutch jenever is usually 35% alcohol, that's 42%), which makes it less smooth. I bought a bottle expecting something like Bols Corenwijn (based on Bols' description of it being an old recipe) and was pretty disappointed by it. I'm not sure why they made the changes they did, other than to try to make it more like a fancier gin for the US market.
Sadly, jenever that isn't the US version of Bols is pretty hard to find in the US. As crazy as it sounds, I actually think Irish whiskey might be as close of a substitute as can easily be found here. It tends to have more of the smooth, malty taste an old-style jenever has; young-style jenver is more like malty vodka.
It was cool to discover 5 days after viewing his Ketchup interview the story behind the drink Max was sipping.
I've read other accounts of the gin craze but Max's account was the only one that really connected all the dots.
Good stuff.
Great episode- gin and absinthe are favorites of mine, and both have a history of demonization by the powers that be (always for the ‘benefit’ of the morals of the poor, because rich powerful people don’t worry about their own excesses, only those that work for them). I’d love to see an episode on absinthe- the water, the sugar, the elaborate spoons- and why drinking it like a shot is the worst way to taste it.
Very enjoyable and informative, thanks!
I don't drink alcohol. But I also don't cook. I found the history part of this as interesting as the history part of any of the cooking videos. So it seems like the actual topic does not matter that much as long as Max gives it his history coverage.