Hello everyone, I am the baijiu brand Kuku tube steel wire brother.
The Baijiu Brand Library is dedicated to discovering more baijiu brands and the stories behind them.
As we all know, baijiu is a Specialty of China and one of the six major distilled spirits in the world, the other five major distilled spirits are brandy, whiskey, vodka, rum, and gin. What is the origin of these six distilled spirits? When did they appear? Wire brother comprehensive query information, plus some personal inferences, let's talk casually.
Earlier we talked about grape shochu brandy, beer daddy whiskey, fighting nation's energy supply vodka, black slave tear rum, today let's talk about the last foreign product of the six distilled spirits: gin.
Unlike the other five distilled spirits that have slowly evolved over the course of history, the inventors and time of their invention are clearly documented. It is a world-renowned distilled spirit made by a Dutch university professor by himself, and I have to say that this professor is really a bit powerful!
Gin
After truly understanding the entire brewing method of gin, you will find that traditional gin and a traditional Chinese aroma-based wine have similar processes and experiences, and what is the answer is revealed at the end of the article.
1. Introduction to gin
Gin, currently the world's largest category of spirits. The wine is colorless and transparent, has a fresh and pleasant taste, can be drunk directly, and the more important use scenario is the cocktail blend (a cocktail?). ), and used a lot, known as the "cocktail heart".
cocktail
The Taiwan region of China is called gin wine. Among them, there are more special ingredients in the wine from juniper nuts, because the Gults call juniper nuts "gen", so this is the source of the English name "GIN"; there are also directly called gin, corresponding to the English name "geneva".
juniper berry
So far, the Netherlands, Britain, the United States, Germany, France, Belgium and many other countries and regions have produced gin, there are two main types of production methods:
Traditional Method:
The method of crushing, saccharification, fermentation, distillation and blending of barley, rye and grain as raw materials.
There are three ways to add juniper nuts.
The first is to add crushed juniper nuts to the brewing raw materials, and add the entire saccharification fermentation distillation link, which is similar to the herbal process in Chinese liquor;
The second is to soak the juniper nuts with alcohol, so that the effective substances and flavors of the juniper nuts are dissolved in ethanol, and re-distill the ethanol to obtain the juniper flavor after soaking for one week;
The third is to directly wrap the juniper nuts with a filter cloth and place them in the outlet position of the distiller, and the effective substances and flavors of the juniper nuts are leached out when the wine body flows out.
Gin distiller
From top to bottom, the technical content of different methods is completely different, and Dutch gin uses both the first and second methods, and the flavor is stronger, so it is not suitable for mixing cocktails, only for pure drinks.
The third method is relatively less technically difficult, which is very similar to filtering coffee; of course, there is the simplest synthesis method.
Synthesis method:
After selecting a high-quality alcohol treatment, adding the treated water diluted to the required degree, and then adding gin spices to prepare the method.
I have to say that the production of synthetic gin and China's dew wine/liquid liquor is too similar, which means that old wine lovers understand.
American mixed gin is produced in this way, so the American gin will be divided into distilled gin (Distiled gin) and mixed gin (Mixed gin) two categories, and at the bottom of the bottle to distinguish, with the D word mark is the American distilled gin, everyone must pay attention to the distinction when buying.
From the perspective of flavor, there are roughly the following types of gin
Spicy Gin (Dry Gin): Light, cool and slightly spicy, can be drunk pure or mixed with cocktails.
Old Tom Gin (Sweetened Gin): Spicy Gin with 2% sugar for a sweeter taste.
Dutch Gin: Because of the most complex process, juniper nuts have the most intense flavor and are suitable for pure drinking.
Fruity Gin (Aromatic Gin): Fruits and spices such as citrus gin, lemon gin, ginger gin, etc. are added. (Here I unconsciously remember the recent fire of "Plum See")
2. Origin story
Invented in 1660
The country of invention – the Netherlands (the Netherlands again?) ）
Inventor - Silves
Gin was founded in 1660 by the Unversity of Leyden in the Netherlands, the first university in the Netherlands, where World Celebrities such as Descartes, Huygens, Churchill, and Fermi studied. It was invented by a professor named Doctor Sylvius.
Coat of arms of leiden University, the Netherlands
Originally, the old professor did the whole thing to make a potion. The efficacy was to help Dutch merchants, seafarers and immigrants operating in the East Indies to prevent tropical malaria disease, and was used as a diuretic and antipyretic agent.
Let's review the historical knowledge: the Dutch East India Company was founded in 1602, the first multinational company in history. The Dutch monopolized Asian trade through the East India Company for two hundred years, becoming the largest commercial enterprise in the 17th century. At that time, during the voyage and colonization process, they encountered the challenges of various diseases. Therefore, reliable agents are urgently needed to solve these problems.
The East India Company's cross-border shipping business
It is no accident that Professor Silves found gin in the wine.
First of all, juniper itself has a lot of medicinal value, ancient Egyptians used it as a disinfectant, ancient Greeks, Our Tibetan people have burned juniper to prevent epidemic infection, Romans also use it as an antibacterial agent, with ethanol to extract effective substances in plants, which is a Western professional has long mastered the art, such as perfume.
Secondly, juniper nuts are widely distributed and can be found throughout the northern hemisphere, which is very easy to obtain. This means that the cost is not high. It's a good thing to do. Things that are too expensive, capitalists are reluctant to give to a bunch of bitter seafarers to use.
Most recently, Northern Europe has a tradition of eating juniper, kimchi, game cooking and meat stew can be put juniper nuts, so the object of use is very adapted to this taste, there will be no sense of resistance.
Juniper tree
Sure enough, it wasn't long before people found that this diuretic had a harmonious aroma, harmonious taste, mellow and gentle, clean body, and a clean, refreshing natural style, and was soon consumed as an official alcoholic beverage.
However, the fact that gin can rise to the top of the world as a rising star is related to the vigorous promotion of King William III of the United Kingdom.
A few words to explain the background first:
The anglican church in England was Protestantism, a branch of Christianity, but Emperor James II was Catholic and issued a series of policies that were completely contrary to the rest of the British ruling class at the time, triggering a non-violent coup d'état, the "Glorious Revolution".
After the English bourgeoisie and the new aristocracy expelled James II in order to ensure their own interests, they put the daughter and son-in-law of the Christian James II into power in January 1689. This son-in-law was Prince William, who was then the ruler of the Netherlands. After ascending the throne, he was named William III and Mary II.
William III and Mary II
After a series of tosses by James II, The British domestic is not to be rebuilt, but also to choke, and the first thing the leaders think of is to develop the economy. And no matter in what era, spirits are a big profit and tax household, one of the grasp of the state's finances (the wire brother also thought of the history of vodka, interested readers and friends can read the previous article), the sun does not fall in the empire, how can there not be a popular high-altitude wine?
Import the neighbor's brandy and whiskey bar, the quota is not much, or just a second-way dealer, what can you make your own spirits? England itself did not produce much grapes, and could only look at other wines.
William III thought of the gin in his hometown, the brewing process is not complicated, the raw materials are simple and easy to obtain, plus the love of the hometown, get it up! So from top to bottom, gin was promoted.
In order to better promote gin, the British government even allows merchants to produce gin without a license, so the result is to greatly reduce the production cost of gin, many capital flocked to start producing and promoting gin, selling more people, and selling cheaply, coupled with the government's intentional guidance, gin naturally became popular.
Looking back, the invention and popularity of gin was accidental for Professor Sylvies, but from a higher point of view, this is also the inevitability of history, the needs of commerce, the acceptance of price and taste, the needs of Britain's economic development, etc.
In fact, the same is true of Chinese liquor. Next, Brother Wire finally opened the chapter of the origin story of Chinese liquor, telling how this fascinating cup of things originated and evolved in the ancient country of the East! (Xi Da Pu Ben ah, next look at how the ancestors of the things hang the foreigners, in front of the Chinese liquor, foreign wine from the brewing process or the thickness of the wine or the incense is not enough to see, do not accept to argue! ）
As mentioned at the beginning of the article, gin is very similar to a Chinese liquor, and the mystery is revealed, and the steel wire brother feels that gin and Dongjiu are very similar.
Among the eight famous wines in China, Dongjiu is a new aroma created by itself, relying on the complex process of liquor into the song, and the complex process of double steaming of the big and small qu is reused to obtain a unique taste; and relying on the liquor fever in recent years, it has also won a lot of fans, and we will talk about it alone in the follow-up.
Dong wine
In the study, learning the origin of the world's six major distilled spirits, the full text collected and sorted out a large number of information, combined with personal inference, after writing found that the total text of more than 30,000 words, the length is too long to read, so split into independent short stories published, interested friends can pay attention to the account, continue to understand.
If there are any mistakes in the article, please point out that on the way to studying liquor, it is necessary to communicate with you more. Some of the images come from the Internet, if there is infringement, please contact the editor to delete.