Gin (genever, juniper spirit)
Ginebra (genever, destilado de enebro)
- Date
- c. 1552 · confidence low
- Place
- Antwerp, Flanders, Belgium
- Credited to
- Distillers of the southern Low Countries
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A malt spirit flavoured with juniper berries, born in the Low Countries as a medicinal remedy. After the 17th century it passed to England and turned into dry gin.
The attribution to the physician Franciscus Sylvius (c. 1650) is a legend; recipes for juniper spirit exist in 16th-century Flemish distilling books, and juniper as a remedy is older.
What it led to
- London gin and the 18th-century Gin Craze
- cocktails such as the gin and tonic
- use of quinine and tonic in the colonies