The imported one BEEFEATER
Beefeater Gin • 94 Proof • 100% Grain Neutral Spirits • Kobrand, N. Y.
The imported one BEEFEATER
Martini Men appreciate the identifiable excellence of imported BEEFEATER GIN
94 Proof • 100% Grain Neutral Spirits • From England by Kobrand, N. Y.
The Grownups’ Hour
The Gift of Excellence
The story of excellence gin is the kind of story that might well be told at the grownups’ hour – that pause in the rush of the day that is set aside for rational discourse on adult topics, over an excellent martini.
Gin was born in the 17th century, when a Dr. Sylvius (Franciscus de la Boe), a professor of medicine at the University of Leyden, invented a drink based on the juniper berry. His purpose was to make a medicine for the fever that attacked Dutch seamen.
The English, whose soldiers lought in the Low Countries, picked up the drink. By the time of the Restoration, in 1660, England was distilling her own gin in large quantities. This lighter, clearer drink relied not on the juniper alone, but also on other herbs and barks and roots and fruit rinds.
But, in those early days, gin remained a seaman’s and soldier’s think, sold by the glass in the gin shops that abounded 17th and 18th century England.
In 1820 a small distillery was opened in Lambeth, within long bowshot of the Tower of London. Here James Burrough devoted himself to distilling something better in gin. His purpose was to make a gin fit to rank with the noble whiskies, the aged brandies and the great wines that graced the Georgian gentleman’s sideboard.
One of the requirements of a great gin is to start with an utterly clean spirit. The slightest trace of alien flavor can throw off the delicate balance of the final flavor the distiller seeks.
In ordinary gins, such minor blemishes may be masked. In a great gin, they cannot.
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BEEFEATER
Excellence doubly safeguarded