Gin: an Italian story

London Dry Gin

What if I told you that Gin was invented and it was born in Italy?

In fact, before being codified in Holland with the name Genever or in England with the name Gin, in Italy already in the eleventh century the monks used to distill wine and juniper berries (together with other botanicals of the Italian countryside) in order to create a drink with surprising tonic and therapeutic properties. And not for nothing, the monasteries were places of research and study, custodians of the art of distillation arrived in Europe from the Middle East, and Italy has always been the idyllic place for the growth of both the vine and the juniper. It should therefore not be surprising if the archetype of Gin was created in Italy, as demonstrated also by the Compendium Salernitanum, an extraordinary medical work dated 1055 AD, that among its pages it explicitly mentions the preparation of a wine distillate and juniper berries with tonic properties. And it is in the wake of this tradition, that in the following centuries the research by monks and alchemists of the famous “aqua vitae” through the distillation of wine will flourish, which then will lead to the birth of all the great distillates around the world.