Selects: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Gin

Gin's history, production, and cultural impact are explored, beginning with its predecessor, Geneva, and its medicinal origins. The hosts discuss the evolution from heavily sweetened "Old Tom" gin to the drier London Dry style, spurred by advancements like the continuous still. They examine the "gin craze" in 18th-century England, marked by both depravity and upper-class anxieties, and the legislative attempts to regulate gin production. The role of British colonialism in sourcing diverse botanicals for gin is highlighted, as is the origin of the gin and tonic as a malaria preventative. The resurgence of gin in the late 20th and early 21st centuries is also noted. The episode concludes with listener mail from a beef jerky entrepreneur.