—"...surely destined to become a classic.... What they have discovered from primary sources should rock the drinks world to its foundations"—Henry Jeffreys, The Spectator UK (2 Nov 2024)

—"is by and for ginophiles...tells us everything we thought we knew was wrong"—Victoria Moore, The Telegraph (Dec 2024)

A Most Noble Water presents an entirely new history of gin. Researched and written by award-winning drinks historians Jared Brown and Anistatia Miller, it shatters the whole notion of a Dutch origin and revisits English gin's German antecedents and definitively English origins. A Most Noble Water is the first book to present in detail the recipes that led up to the development of modern-day gin and includes them verbatim. And it is heavily footnoted, so every reader can argue with the authors-or not.

—"A diligently researched, masterfully edited, and most attractively produced book. It will become a warm friend to anyone interested in the history of distilling and particularly of gin and its botanicals plus the Worshipful Company of Distillers. I shall keep my copy close to hand."-Charles Maxwell, 10th generation London distiller and proprietor of Thames Distillery, London

—"Masterful reveal of a classic distilling archive."-Nicholas Cook, former Director General, The Gin Guild, UK

Originally published in 1639 The Distiller of London provides readers with an understanding of the evolution that distilling went through as it made its transformation in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-centuries from a medicine to a social beverage. And it offers a brief tour of Stuart-era taste preferences.

Although there were other books printed in England even earlier than the seventeenth-century that included juniper in recipes, this particular volume is of scholarly interest because it not only contained a few such recipes, but because it was published by the Worshipful Company of Distillers of London, the regulatory body that oversaw the emerging distilling trade before William and Mary ascended the English throne in 1688 and before the eighteenth-century Gin Craze brought illegitimate distillers and compounders before the public eye, soiling the budding industry’s reputation for nearly a century.

Written in code to protect its ‘mysteries’ from a curious lay readership, Miller and Brown have deciphered the recipes and provided a historical overview so that the present and future generations of distillers and rectifiers can find inspiration for their own creations and lay readers can capture a glimpse into this fascinating profession that continues to grow and evolve today.