Drunk for a penny
dead drunk for tuppence
clean straw for nothing
-Inscription on the arch of the gin celler
"Gin Royal" in Hogarth's Gin Lane
You can see the detail in this version of the famous print, click to enlarge.
From Bloomberg:
London Gin Craze Had Roots in Nascent Consumer Society
Gin has always been big business in England. In the 18th century, as London’s infamous “Gin Craze” unfolded, the spirit was at the center of a debate that helped define the country’s politics and economics -- and created a commercial demand that persists to this day.
The privileged of the 1700s sipped genever, the “original gin” imported from Holland. Desperate to keep up with their betters, the lower classes demanded a gin of their own. As a result, from 1720 to 1751, a storm of unrest swirled around the production, distribution and sale of rotgut booze.
The story of the Gin Craze properly begins with the Glorious Revolution of 1688, which brought William III of Orange to the British throne. He brought with him a hatred of all things French -- he immediately banned the import of Gallic spirits, such as brandy -- and a warring political agenda that required funding. Meanwhile, William’s wealthy landowner friends in Parliament had surplus grain, not to mention an eye for the profit it could make them.
A Stranglehold
This led to a series of political machinations that would set the stage for gin’s stranglehold on the underprivileged. First, the Distilling Act of 1690 dissolved the production monopoly that had been held by the Worshipful Company of Distillers, thus allowing anyone to set up a still simply by posting a public notice and produce spirits without a license.
Then, in 1694, beer -- the “national beverage” -- was subjected to a heavy tax, making gin cheaper to drink. In 1720, one of Parliament’s annual Mutiny Acts stated that those who distilled spirits in their homes didn’t have to house soldiers, since soldiers and alcohol often did not create the best of situations. Soon, “distillers” of the home-grown sort abounded. Over time, the government would come to rely heavily on excises on distilled spirits for revenue.
And gin didn’t disappoint, luring the masses from their daily toil with its promise of blissful oblivion. The era’s extreme consumption -- in London, with a population of about 600,000, one in four residents were drunk at any given time -- reflected the development of a nascent consumer society. A lack of available workers increased wages as supply affected demand. For the first time in history, the English masses had something akin to disposable income, and they enthusiastically spent it on whatever might ease their suffering, particularly gin. Although the English, rich and poor alike, had always drunk to excess, never before had the underprivileged been able to consume a spirit so readily available and so deadly.
Thanks in part to the Mutiny Act, there were roughly 7,000 gin shops in London in 1720. By 1733, the city was producing 11 million gallons of legal gin per year -- roughly 14 gallons for every man, woman and child. The harsh flavor and adulterated character of this 160-proof gin was only partially disguised by the addition of creative additives like turpentine and sulfuric acid (and later juniper). It was a recipe for death and social destruction....MORE
