Sublime

In 1736, the first Gin Act was passed. Gin (from the Latin juniperus, ‘juniper’) was first distilled in Holland and brought back to England by soldiers returning from the Anglo-Dutch wars. Cheap to buy and even cheaper to produce, it quickly became the easy ticket out of the miseries of poverty. As a jingle at the time went, you could be ‘drunk for

Inevitably, the black market became awash with gin, and English duly obliged with dozens of euphemisms for tiptoeing around it, including diddle, sweetstuff, tiger’s milk, tittery, royal bob, and needle and pin (mother’s ruin and strip-me-naked, on the other hand, told it exactly like it was).