the story of gin
Gin’s story is the story of one small berry: from monastery medicine to the London gin craze, from the first gin and tonic to the small distillers of today. This is how juniper found its way into your glass.
a short history of gin
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1500s–1600s
juniper as medicine
It starts in the monasteries and apothecaries of Europe, where juniper berries were distilled into remedies for everything from stomach ache to gout. In the Low Countries the remedy grew into genever, a malty juniper spirit, and people began to drink it for its taste.
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1600s
dutch courage
English soldiers fighting alongside the Dutch met genever there and carried the taste for it home across the North Sea. The nickname “Dutch courage” is said to date from this time.
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1689
a king called orange
Then a Dutchman took the English throne. William of Orange taxed French brandy and encouraged distilling at home, and genever, shortened to gin, became England’s own. Gin’s first great moment came from a king called Orange. We like that.
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1720–1751
the gin craze
Too much, too fast. London was flooded with cheap, often dreadful gin, sold from barrows and back rooms. A string of Gin Acts, ending with the Gin Act of 1751, brought it under control, and gin had to earn its good name again.
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1830s
london dry
It did so through engineering. The new column still made a cleaner, purer spirit, so distillers could build flavour from botanicals alone. A lighter, drier style followed: London Dry. Today it is a style, not a place.
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1850s
the gin and tonic
Far from London, in British India, bitter quinine tonic was drunk to ward off malaria. Officers added gin, sugar and lime to make it easier to drink, and the gin and tonic was born. It has been gin’s best friend ever since.
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2000s
the craft renaissance
After decades in vodka’s shadow, gin found its wild side again. Small distillers began to experiment with local botanicals and new flavours, each gin telling the story of the place it came from.
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today
fenrir
The newest chapter is ours. Fenrir’s first gin is distilled in small batches on Bornholm, a granite island in the Baltic, with juniper at its heart and pomegranate and orange in the lead.
five styles of gin
Every gin is built on juniper. What happens around it decides the style.
- london dry
- Crisp and dry, with juniper up front. All flavour comes from distillation; nothing is added afterwards except water.
- plymouth
- A style from the English port of Plymouth: a little less dry and softer, with an earthy depth.
- old tom
- Lightly sweetened, from 18th-century London. The gin behind the original Tom Collins.
- genever
- The Dutch ancestor of gin. Malty and rounded, closer to a light whisky.
- contemporary
- Juniper takes a step back and other botanicals lead, from citrus and fruit to flowers and spice.
where fenrir fits
Our Pomegranate & Orange keeps juniper and coriander at its core, like a classic gin, and lets pomegranate and orange lead, with cinnamon, nutmeg and pink pepper for warmth beneath. It sits between the classic and the contemporary: one foot in four hundred years of history, one in the wild North.
Making it is still a ritual, a dance between tradition and innovation. Nine botanicals go into the still, each with a story of its own, and come out as one. When you uncork the bottle, that whole story pours into your glass.