Cultural Commentary. * By the 11th century, Italian monks were flavoring crudely distilled spirits with juniper berries

* By the 11th century, Italian monks were flavoring crudely distilled spirits with juniper berries. During the Black Death, this drink was used, although ineffectively, as a remedy. As the science of distillation advanced from the Middle Ages into the Renaissance period, juniper was one of many botanicals employed by virtue of its perfume, flavour, and purported medicinal properties.

The Dutch physician Franciscus Sylvius is credited with the invention of gin. By the mid 17th century, numerous small Dutch and Flemish distillers had popularized the re-distillation of malt spirit or wine with juniper, anise, caraway, coriander, etc.,which were sold in pharmacies and used to treat such medical problems as kidney ailments, lumbago, stomach ailments, gallstones, and gout. It was found in Holland by English troops who were fighting against the Spanish in the Eighty Years' War who noticed its calming effects before battle, which is the origin of the term Dutch courage. Gin emerged in England in varying forms as of the early 17th century, and at the time of the Restoration, enjoyed a brief resurgence. When William of Orange, ruler of the Dutch Republic, occupied the British throne with his wife Mary in what has become known as the Glorious Revolution, gin became vastly more popular, particularly in crude, inferior forms, where it was more likely to be flavoured with turpentineas an alternative to juniper. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin

* Gin’s negative reputation survives today in the English language, in terms like "gin mills" or the American phrase "gin joints" to describe disreputable bars or "gin-soaked" to refer to drunks, and in the phrase "mother's ruin", a common British name for gin. Paradoxically the "negative" connotations are now becoming associated with "positive" connotations - with the resurgence of gin, upmarket bars now frequently refer to "mother's ruin", "gin palaces", where printed copies of Hogarth paintings may sometimes be found. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gin