Gin

“ The two women sat by the fire, tilting their glasses and drinking in small peaceful sips. The lamp-light shone upon the tidy room and the polished table, lighting topaz in the dandelion wine, spilling pools of crimson through the flanks of the bottle of plum gin. ”

“ Alcohol is doomed; it is going it is gone. Yet when I think of a hot Scotch on a winter evening, or a Tom Collins on a summer morning, or a gin Rickey beside a tennis-court, or a stein of beer on a bench beside a bowling-green—I wish somehow that we could prohibit the use of alcohol and merely drink beer and whisky and gin as we used to. ”

“ The gin—that hellish liquor which blurs the hideous picture of life, which stills the gnawing pain, which stays the crushing hand of despair, and blunts the grinding teeth of anguish when the child lies dead of the rickets, or the 'sticks' are sold for the rent, or the sweater has no more work to give, or the husband has beaten and kicked the weary flesh black and blue! What would they do, these women, were it not for the Devil's usury of peace—the gin? ”

“ Gin Sling.—Take a large tumbler or silver tankard, put into it a liqueur glass of maraschino of noyeau or of plain syrup (made by dissolving in spring water as much pounded loaf sugar as it will possibly take up) . Half fill the tankard with little blocks of ice, and put in a thin paring of the outer yellow skin of a lemon. Then add a sufficient quantity of unsweetened gin to suit the taste. Now empty into the tumbler the contents of a bottle of soda water, and stir well up with a tablespoon to amalgamate the whole. A sprig of borage with one blue flower may be added. ”

“ A wretched woman who had just fetched half-a-quartern of gin from the nearest public-house, though a denizen of the place, and familiar with every broken flag-stone and crumbling brick, stumbled over her own threshold, and spilt a portion of the precious liquid. ”

“ Gin-drinking is a great vice in England, but wretchedness and dirt are a greater; and until you improve the homes of the poor, or persuade a half-famished wretch not to seek relief in the temporary oblivion of his own misery, with the pittance which, divided among his family, would furnish a morsel of bread for each, gin-shops will increase in number and splendour. ”

“ Labour and art upheld by thee, Successfully advance, We quaff thy balmy juice with glee; And water leave to France.
Genius of Health! thy grateful taste Rivals the cup of Jove, And warms each English generous breast With liberty and love.
Look now at the noisome slum where the demon Gin reigns tri­um­phant. Squalor, poverty, hun­ger, wretch­ed­ness and sin are depicted on all sides. Here flourish the pawn­broker and the keeper of the gin-palace—but the picture is too speaking a one to need comment.
GIN.
Gin! ”

“ The brandy they drink is liquid lightning—chain lightning—which goes crashing through the system, breaking down and destroying every pulsation towards anything good. The gin—well, their gin is the very acme, the absolute summit, of vileness. There is a quarrel in every gill of it, a wife-beating in every pint, and a murder in every quart. A smell of a glass of it nearly drove me to criminal recklessness.
A LONDON GIN DRINKING WOMAN.
And yet they all drink it, and especially the women. ”

“ The product so obtained constitutes the “dry” gin of commerce. Sweetened or cordialized gin is obtained by adding sugar and flavouring matter (juniper, coriander, angelica, &c.) to the dry variety. Inferior qualities of gin are made by simply adding essential oils to plain spirit, the distillation process being omitted. The essential oil of juniper is a powerful diuretic, and gin is frequently prescribed in affections of the urinary organs. ”

“ As the vapor passes through the tube, it cools and drops out at the end into the worm-tub, changed into a liquid stronger in alcohol than that from which it was drawn or distilled.
In this way gin is made from beer, brandy from wine, and rum from fermented molasses. These are very strong drinks, and only hard drinkers like them. But very few people begin by taking these; they first learn to like alcohol by drinking cider, beer, or wine, and end with gin, whiskey, or rum when they have become drunkards. ”

“ In Gin Lane, the artist portrays a loathsome neighbourhood, the presiding genius of which is gin. To procure it no means are left untried. Every article of domestic comfort, even to the meanest shred of raiment, is carried to the pawnbroker for the wherewithal to purchase gin. ”

“ Hither small parties of men are continually repairing to “take a drink.” Perhaps they each choose a different kind of punch, or sling, or cocktail, requiring various combinations, in different proportions, of whisky, brandy, or gin, with sugar, bitters, peppermint, absinthe, curaçao, lemon-peel, mint, and what not; but the bar-keeper mixes them all as if by magic, when each man, taking his glass, and tipping those of all the rest as he mutters some sentiment, swallows the compound and wipes his moustache. ”

“ She'd drink the water and touch the gin to her lips, pretending it was the chaser, and then dump the rest of it on the ground. She did that all afternoon, and I, guileless and honest, trying to keep pace with her, lapped up approximately three quarters of a quart of gin alone and single-handed and presently passed right out of the picture. ”

“ It may be a lovely warm day, when the acrid reek of alcohol is more than usually abhorrent; but he must take something strong that will presently inflame the flabby bulge of his cheeks and set his evil eyes watering more freely than ever. Gin is his favourite refreshment, because it is cheap, and produces stupefaction more rapidly than any other liquid. Very probably he will mix gin and ale in one horrid draught—and in that case you know that he is very far gone indeed on the downward road. ”

“ Take of singlings a sufficient quantity to fill the doubling still, put therein ten or twelve pounds of juniper berries, with one shovel full of ashes, and two ounces alum—put on the bead, and run her off, as is done in making whiskey. This is the common mode of making country gin; but is in this state little superior to whiskey, save as to smell and flavor. ”

“ Chemistry seems to agree with the temperance society, that wine, beer, brandy, gin, whiskey, and rum are alcohol and water, mixed in different proportions, and with some slight differences of flavoring and coloring matter. In all these drinks, teetotalers maintain, alcohol is power, the other ingredients being mere dilution and flavoring. Wine, they assure us, is alcohol and water flavored with grapes; beer is alcohol and water flavored with malt and hops; Bourbon whiskey is alcohol and water flavored with corn. ”

“ If he takes gin enough, it’s all gone; burnt up like a bit o’ sponge in the burning spirits o’ wine. Water, and gas, and air, and wholesome lodging! Why, isn’t gin cheapest, when it makes a man do without ’em? ”

“ And if there was no strong beer, were they not content with the simple “mum” distilled from wheat, were it but the “twopenny” which can always be improved by a little gin! With such drinks they scarcely missed their port and sherry. ”

“ Gin is an alcoholic drink distilled from malt or from unmalted barley or other grain, and afterwards rectified and flavoured. The word is French, genièvre, juniper, corrupted into Geneva, and subsequently into its present form. It is to the berries of the juniper that the best Hollands owes its flavour.
Perhaps one of the earliest allusions to gin is in Massinger’s Duke of Milan (1623) , Act I., scene i., when Graccho, a creature of Mariana, says to the courtier Julio, of a chance drunkard,
“Bid him sleep ”

“ The general design of the Plate Beer Street is to expose the deadly habit of gin-drinking, and to teach that if man must drink strong liquors, beer is far the best to indulge in.
Edward Young, courtier, poet, rector, a general genius, satirised tea and wine as abused by the women of his day. ”

“ Method.—Half fill clean, dry wine bottles with the fruit. Add to each 1 oz of crushed barley sugar, a little noyeau, or 2 or 3 drops of almonds. Fill the bottles with good unsweetened gin, cork them securely, and allow them to remain in a moderately warm place for 3 months. At the end of this time strain the liqueur through fine muslin or filtering paper until quite clear, then bottle it, cork securely and store for use. ”

“ The stanch old soakers, on the other hand,—men who, if put on tap, would have yielded a red alcoholic liquor by way of blood,—usually confined themselves to plain brandy-and-water, gin, or West India rum; and, oftentimes, they prefaced their dram with some medicinal remark as to the wholesomeness and stomachic qualities of that particular drink. ”

“ They receive their half-quartern of gin and peppermint, with considerable deference, prefacing a request for ‘one of them soft biscuits,’ with a ‘Jist be good enough, ma’am.’ They are quite astonished at the impudent air of the young fellow in a brown coat and bright buttons, who, ushering in his two companions, and walking up to the bar in as careless a manner as if he had been used to green and gold ornaments all his life, winks at one of the young ladies with singular coolness, and calls for a ‘kervorten and a three-out-glass,’ just as if the place were his own. ”

“ By the Excise laws at present existing in this country, the various degrees of strength of brandy, rum, arrack, gin, whiskey, and other spiritous liquors, chiefly composed of little else than spirit of wine, are determined by the quantity of alcohol of a given specific gravity contained in the spiritous liquors of a supposed unknown strength. ”

“ As to the best compound for a hunting-flask, it will seldom be found that any two men perfectly agree; yet, as a rule, the man who carries the largest, and is most liberal with it to his friends, will be generally esteemed the best concocter. Some there are who prefer to all others a flask of gin into which a dozen cloves have been inserted, while others, younger in age and more fantastic in taste, believe in equal parts of gin and noyau, or of sherry and Maraschino. For our own part, we must admit a strong predilection for a pull at a flask containing a well-made cold punch, or a dry Curaçoa. ”

“ What there is about gin that makes it the national beverage for bad people beats me, for it looks like water, tastes like medicine and smells like cold storage eggs. At home when a person takes a drink of beer or whisky he at least looks happy for a minute, and maybe he laughs, but here nobody laughs unless somebody gets hurt, and that seems to tickle everybody in the White Chapel district. ”

“ “O gin I find anither ladye,”
He said wi’ sighs and tears,
“I wot my coortin’ sall not be
Anither thirty years:
[Pg 201]
“For gin I find a ladye gay,
Exactly to my taste,
I’ll pop the question, aye or nay,
In twenty years at maist.” ”

“ GIBSON COCKTAIL
Use a large Mixing glass with Lump Ice.
1 jigger Gordon Gin.
1 pony French Vermouth.
Stir; strain and serve in Cocktail glass.
GILLETTE COCKTAIL—Chicago Style
Use a large Mixing glass; fill with Lump Ice.
Juice 1⁄2 Lime.
11⁄2 jiggers Burnette's Old Tom Gin.
1⁄2 teaspoonful Bar Sugar.
Stir well and strain into Cocktail glass.
GIN AND CALAMUS
Put 1⁄2 oz. of Calamus Root, which has been steeped, into a quart bottle of Gin.
Serve as you would a Straight Drink. ”

“ The other "willingly certifies" that "a more absolutely besotted specimen of gin-soddened humanity" it would be impossible to find. Sent the replies off to the Enthusiast, who returns me some of the Patent Remedy in a bottle, "to be taken as directed," but no money! What a swindle! Pawnbroker round the corner declines to advance a farthing on the Remedy. Nothing left but to try it!
Have tried it! Awfully good stuff! Must have gin in it, I think. Leave off my nightly potation of spirits, and drink half the bottle instead. Refreshing sleep. Haven't had such a night for ages. ”

“ Considering the industry and skill of their gins or wives in making nets, sewing cloaks, mussel fishing, rooting, etc., and their patient submission to labour, always carrying the bags which contain the whole property of the family, the great value of a gin to one of these lazy fellows may be easily imagined. ”

“ It carries the bar sinister of all liqueurs. Bitters and curaçao, whisky and maraschino, brandy, vermouth and cassis, Fernet Branca, gentle raspberry, all of these; and crème de menthe, and gin, and absinthe, and apple-jack, these, too, are of its fiery soul, and apricot brandy that is like a blush, sherry like a burnt topaz, paprika to make you leap, and sly benedictine, dancing anisette, and port like a41 minor canon, gins from Plymouth, and Schiedam, virginal grenadine, all can join with all the fruits the world has ever known, cherry, lemon, tangerine, olive, spray of tarragon too. ”

“ Enthusiast calls to see how I am getting on. Immensely pleased. Leaves me another bottle of the Remedy, and—on my threatening to strike unless he gives me some money—half a sovereign. Get in more gin.
Extraordinary thing has happened. Gin seems positively nasty to me now! Forced myself to drink a little. Deadly sick! There must be something very unwholesome about the Remedy. Pitch rest of it out of window.
Glad to say that my taste for gin has come back. Was able to finish half a bottle at a sitting. Go round to Enthusiast's office, to tell him about dangerous effect of his alleged Remedy. ”

“ The author has always used this recipe in compounding the above beverage for connoisseurs. Whiskey and gin cocktails, in bottles, may be made by using the above recipe, and substituting those liquors instead of brandy. ”