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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards

(Alcohol) Why Gin has herbs/botanicals? Just for flavor or medicinal?

G

gh0stmAn

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Jul 17, 2013
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Basically to make a long question short, did the herbs to flavor Gin ever have a medicinal use?? Ever sense I was a kid I remember my dad always drank Gin & Tonics, when he did drink, he was/is far from an alcoholic. Anyways I was having a Gin & Tonic with him last night and was wondering if any of the herbs to flavor the beverage do anything medicinal to do with them? Especially sense Gin has been made for 100's of years.. So the Gin last night we were drink was "Bombay Sapphire" and it had: almond, lemon peel, liquorice, juniper berries, orris root, angelica, coriander, cassia, cubeb, and grains of paradise in it.. Would any of those "back in the day" be considered medicinal (or even still today) or were they mainly just used to create a unique flavor among different Gin makers???:?
 
An old bootlegger named Pops used to sell to us kids (1988-1993) .. He had an old bulldog and sold half pints, pints. He turned me on to gin, and I fell in love with it.

Gin, sprite/tonic , two limes. I was the only girl drinking gin. I don't drink anymore, haven't for years.

Yes, in many ways, herbs were used a lot to heal back in the day but as far as the alcohol itself, even mixing with herbs, it defeated the purpose of healing...Yet many believed gin's ingredients had medicinal purposes.

Today, it's just used mostly for "flavor".

Research the history of Gin...very interesting stuff.
 
Gin is some nasty shit LOL. I used to like Tanqueray though.

A lot of people seem to think that straight gin is undrinkable, but I dunno...I never seemed to have a problem with it. It's like drinking a spruce tree. I always used to drink it on the rocks with maybe a little lime juice squeezed in.
 
Gin was first imported to the UK from Holland IIRC, and was sold as a medicinal 'tonic', called Geneva - which I think you can still buy? No idea what it was like back then, but it contained Juniper and stuff, which gave it that particular smell and taste. Soon became very popular of course (see Hogarth) among the working classes, who eschewed 'work' for gin drinking, when it started being sold in pubs, in bulk. "Drunk for a Penny, dead drunk for Tuppence!" went the old advert, and gin sold very well, by the pint, to yound and old alike ... to be fair, they neeses something to wash down their Laudenum with?
 
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