Gin, Or Geneva (Fr. genievre, juniper), an alcoholic liquor, distilled generally from rye and barley and flavored with juniper. It was made originally in Holland, whence it is sometimes called "hollands," and it is still manufactured largely at Schiedam, Gouda, and Amsterdam. In the distilleries of Schiedam two parts of unmalted Riga rye are used to one part of malted bigg or barley. This is mashed with water, at a temperature of from 162° to 168°, in the proportion of 36 gallons to every 1 1/2 cwt. of meal. When the magma has been made uniform by stirring, the tun is covered to confine the heat, and it is left thus for two hours. It is then stirred up again, the transparent spent wash of a preceding mashing is added, and afterward cold water enough to reduce the temperature to 85°. Flanders yeast is introduced next, in the proportion of 1 lb. to every 100 gallons of the mixture. Fermentation speedily sets in, and the attenuation is complete in from 48 to 60 hours. A part of the yeast is usually skimmed off from the fermenting tuns, by which the production of spirit is obstructed, but the quality of the liquor is improved by preventing its impregnation with yeasty particles.

The wash and grains are then transferred to the still and converted into low wines, into every 100 gallons of which are put two pounds of juniper berries and about a quarter of a pound of salt. The whole is then put into the low-wine still and the spirit drawn off by a well regulated heat. The quantity of spirit varies from 18 to 21 gallons to the quarter of grain. There are 300 distilleries of this liquor at Schiedam. English gin, manufactured largely in London and other places in Great Britain, is made usually from the impure products of the distillation of Scotch and English whiskey, rectified by one or more distilla-tions, and flavored with various substances, such as the oil of turpentine, oil of juniper, coriander seeds, cardamoms, capsicum, etc. This gin is the common alcoholic drink of the lower classes in England, and almost every London dealer has his private receipt for increasing its pungency and strength. It is adulterated probably more than any other liquor. Pure gin contains, according to Brande, 51.60 parts of alcohol in every 100 parts.