Gin has had a noble history as a medicine as, or rather, as a way to make medicine more palatable. Quinine is the distillation of the ground bark of the cinchona tree, which produced a tonic that was capable of treating malaria. Unfortunately, the quinine was incredibly bitter, and gin was used to cut it. The flavour caught on, and to this day, the tonic in the Gin and Tonic contains the slightest bit of quinine to capture the flavour of the original. The history of World Gin Day itself began in 2009, following the efforts of an avid gin connoisseur, Neil Houston. He was already a massive fan of gin, but wanted to find a way to bring the drink to more people so that they could enjoy it. At the time, it looked as if other spirits might supersede gin. So he and the “Gin Monkey” Emma Stokes, teamed up to launch the first World Gin Day in Birmingham as a way to popularise a gin bar. In 2010, they launched a similar event in London and have been celebrating this juniper-based beverage like clockwork ever since. World Gin Day started as a tiny event in 2009, but it has since grown to enormous proportions. In the last few years, things have really taken off. At the last count, the organisers reached more than 200 million social media users and ran events in more than 30 countries. It's about time we had another booze based day
World Fin Day? Where are you're proof reading skills, Bern? PS this is my wife's favourite day! (for gin, not fin) Edit: Bern has now corrected it if you were wondering what I was on about!
