2. Grain gold, 1 dr.; rose copper, 15 gr.; aqua regia, 2 fl. oz.; proceed as last. Used in ‘Gold Gilding.’
3. See Gold (in powder).
Gilding Shells. See Gold Shells.
Gilding Size. See Gold Size.
Gilding Wax. Syn. Gilding varnish, Gilder’s wax. Prep. 1. From beeswax, 4 oz.; verdigris and sulphate of copper, of each 1 oz.; melted together.
2. Beeswax, 4 oz.; verdigris, red ochre, and alum, of each 1 oz. Used to give a red gold colour to water gilding.
GIN. Syn. Gene′va. Corn spirit flavoured with either oil of juniper or oil of turpentine.
Gin was originally and, for some time, wholly imported from Holland, and was a rich, soft spirit, flavoured, chiefly, with juniper berries; on which account it had obtained the name of ‘GENEVA,’ from ‘GENIÈVRE,’ the French for juniper. After a time the distillation of an imitation geneva sprung up in this country, when the foreign spirit came to be called ‘Hollands,’ or ‘Hollands geneva,’ to distinguish it from the spirit of home manufacture. The English monosyllable ‘GIN’ is a corruption of geneva, the primary syllable of which, as in numerous other instances, was seized on by the vulgar, and adopted as a short and convenient substitute for the whole word.
The liquor at present known by the name of ‘gin’ in this country is a very different article to that imported from Holland, and consists of plain corn-spirit, flavoured with oil of turpentine and small quantities of certain aromatics. The thousand and one receipts for this article, which have from time to time been printed in books, produce a flavoured spirit bearing no resemblance to the more esteemed samples of English gin; and, if possible, the products are even more unlike genuine Hollands. Any persons may easily satisfy himself of the truth of this assertion by actual experiment on the small scale. The cause of this incongruity has arisen chiefly from the writers not being practically acquainted with the subject, and from the disinclination of well-informed practical men to divulge, gratuitously, what they conceive to be valuable secrets. Hence the utter failure of any attempts to produce either gin or Hollands from the receipts usually published. The authors appear to have all imbibed a juniper-berry mania—probably from the imbibition of their favourite beverage. Oil of juniper, in the hands of these gentlemen, appears to be a perfect aqua mirabilis, that readily converts whisky into gin, and imparts the rich creamy flavour of ‘Schiedam Hollands’ to crude corn or molasses spirit. But theory and experiment sometimes disagree. In practice, it is found that the true flavour of foreign geneva cannot be imparted to spirit by juniper alone, and that the English gin of the present day depends for its flavour on no such a substance. The following formulæ are merely given as specimens; and it is proper to remark, that every distiller has his own receipt for this notorious beverage. Hence it is that the gins of no two distillers are of precisely the same flavour; and this difference is still more marked when the distillers reside in parts of the country remote from each other. Booth’s, Smith’s, and Nicholson’s gins have each a characteristic flavour, readily perceived by their respective votaries; whilst the difference between ‘Plymouth’ or ‘Bristol gin,’ and the ‘gin of the metropolis,’ is as remarkable as that between ‘Barclay’s XXX’ and ‘Guinness’s bottled stout.’ These variations in flavour generally depend on the use of more or less flavouring matter, or of a spirit more or less clean or free from taint; and, less frequently, on the addition of a small quantity of some peculiar aromatic, which exercises a modifying influence on the chief flavouring ingredient. In many cases the flavour has originated from accident, but the consumers having become accustomed to, and hence relishing, that particular ‘palate,’ it is found to be unwise or commercially impossible to alter it. Any change in these matters is therefore looked upon in every distillery as a dangerous innovation, which would prove more prejudicial to the prosperity of its exchequer than the repeal of the duty on French wines and brandy, or even a frightful conflagration. The distillers, like the brewers, are thorough conservatives in all matters connected with the flavour of their liquors.
In the preparation of gin, both sweetened and unsweetened, and indeed of liquors generally, the greatest possible care must be taken to avoid an excess of flavouring. The most esteemed samples are those that consist of very pure spirit, slightly flavoured.