Almost 500 years ago, there lived a physician called Dr Conrad Gesner. He was a Swiss doctor who did more than treat people. He also spent a lot of time doing scientific research, and was pretty accomplished at distilling. With the author of this article being both a doctor and distiller, the attraction of reading more about him is perhaps obvious to see.
It turns out that in 1559 he published a treatise called (The Treasure of Euronymus). In this, he wrote many recipes, amongst which were the spirit distillations of juniper based concoctions, i.e. gin. The botanicals numbered into the 20’s within one recipe and up to 44 in another.
Gesner wrote that his recipe was “a most noble water of virtues worthy to be preferred before silver and gold”. Interesting he said this, given that nutmeg and many other spices and botanicals were in fact much more valued than gold in such times. The sort of botanicals included: grains of paradise, sage, fennel, nutmeg, pepper, cubeb berries, cardamom and almond. Truly amazing as we are still using all of these ingredients nowadays.
Not long after he wrote this treatise, it was translated by a Morpeth born gentleman called William Turner in “A New Herball”. This focused his local trees and botanicals and juniper was noted in that it “grows plenteously… in the bishopric of Durham and Northumberland…”
Juniper was considered to be a medicinal plant in days of old. It was felt to be good at stopping such things as nosebleeds, convulsions in childbirth, treating oedema (swelling of the legs) and asthma, in days of old. Nowadays we have more efficient options.
Poignantly, Dr Gesner was alive during a pandemic (The Bubonic Plague aka The Black Death). The similarities between Dr G and the author therefore continue, given our current pandemic. I hope this is where they stop though, as sadly, the disease killed him in 1665 so it appears that juniper wasn’t very good at stopping the black death for poor Dr Gesner!
Cheers
The Herbal Gin Company