Gin is a distilled spirit made from a based of wheat or rye most often. It is flavored with juniper berries and other "botanicals". The combination of various botanicals is what makes a brand of gin taste unique from other brands. Examples of botanicals include anise, angelica root, cinnamon, orange peel, coriander, and cassia bark.

The botanicals can impart their flavor to the spirit in two ways. Cheap gins (called 'compound' gins) are made by mixing the alcohol with extracts and distilling the mixture. Higher-quality gins are made by distilling the vapor through a suspension of botanicals, allowing them to impart their flavor on the gin.

Types of gin include: London dry, Plymouth dry, Old Tom, and Genever or Hollands, which is made in Holland and Belgium.

Gin (?), prep. [AS. ge n. See Again.]

Against; near by; towards; as, gin night.

[Scot.]

A. Ross (1778).

 

© Webster 1913.


Gin, conj. [See Gin, prep.]

If.

[Scotch]

Jamieson.

 

© Webster 1913.


Gin (?), v. i. [imp. & p. p. Gan (?), Gon (), ∨ Gun (); p. pr. & vb. n. Ginning.] [OE. ginnen, AS. ginnan (in comp.), prob. orig., to open, cut open, cf. OHG. inginnan to begin, open, cut open, and prob. akin to AS. ginan to yawn, and E. yawn. See Yawn, v. i., and cf. Begin.]

To begin; -- often followed by an infinitive without to; as, gan tell. See

Gan. [Obs. or Archaic] "He gan to pray.

"

Chaucer.

 

© Webster 1913.


Gin (?), n. [Contr. from Geneva. See 2d Geneva.]

A strong alcoholic liquor, distilled from rye and barley, and flavored with juniper berries; -- also called Hollands and Holland gin, because originally, and still very extensively, manufactured in Holland. Common gin is usually flavored with turpentine.

 

© Webster 1913.


Gin (?), n. [A contraction of engine.]

1.

Contrivance; artifice; a trap; a snare.

Chaucer. Spenser.

2. (a)

A machine for raising or moving heavy weights, consisting of a tripod formed of poles united at the top, with a windlass, pulleys, ropes, etc.

(b) Mining

A hoisting drum, usually vertical; a whim.

3.

A machine for separating the seeds from cotton; a cotton gin.

The name is also given to an instrument of torture worked with screws, and to a pump moved by rotary sails.

Gin block, a simple form of tackle block, having one wheel, over which a rope runs; -- called also whip gin, rubbish pulley, and monkey wheel. -- Gin power, a form of horse power for driving a cotton gin. -- Gin race, ∨ Gin ring, the path of the horse when putting a gin in motion. Halliwell. -- Gin saw, a saw used in a cotton gin for drawing the fibers through the grid, leaving the seed in the hopper. -- Gin wheel. (a) In a cotton gin, a wheel for drawing the fiber through the grid; a brush wheel to clean away the lint. (b) Mining the drum of a whim.

 

© Webster 1913.


Gin, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Ginned (?); p. pr. & vb. n. Ginning.]

1.

To catch in a trap.

[Obs.]

Beau. & Fl.

2.

To clear of seeds by a machine; as, to gin cotton.

 

© Webster 1913.

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