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Gin has been a drink of kings infused with crushed pearls and rose petals, and a drink of the poor flavored with turpentine and sulfuric acid. Born in alchemists� stills and monastery kitchens, its earliest incarnations were juniper flavored medicines used to prevent plague, ease the pains of childbirth, even to treat a lack of courage. In The Book of Gin, Richard Barnett traces the life of this beguiling spirit, once believed to cause a �new kind of drunkenness.� In the eighteenth century, gin-craze debauchery (and class conflict) inspired Hogarth�s satirical masterpieces �Gin Lane� and �Beer Street.� In the nineteenth century, gin was drunk by Napoleonic War naval heroes, at lavish gin palaces, and by homesick colonials, who mixed it with their bitter anti-malarial tonics. In the early twentieth century, the illicit cocktail culture of prohibition made gin � often dangerous bathtub gin�fashionable again. And today, with the growth of small�batch distilling, gin has once-again made a comeback. Wide-ranging, impeccably researched, and packed with illuminating stories, The Book of Gin is lively and fascinating, an indispensible history of a complex and notorious drink.