Gin

"London Dry" gin is the best known type of gin. The term "London Dry" refers to style and not a geographical location. This type of gin is first distilled in a column still, typically from a fermented mash of up to 75% corn, 15% barley malt, and other grains. Purified water is added to reduce the distillate to 120 proof.
The reduced spirit is redistilled with flavoring agents called "botanicals", a mixture of roots, herbs, fruits and seeds. Among those frequently usedare, juniper berries, caraway, anise and coriander seeds, lemon and orange peels, angelica and orris roots. These give gin its unique flavor and bouquet. The final distillate is again reduced in alcohol content to 80 to 94 proof, and then bottled.
London dry gin is not aged, although it is often stored in glass-lined, stainless steel holding vats before bottling. Other, less well known types of gin are Geneva (Genever) and Plymouth.

The name gin is derived from either the French genièvre or the Dutch jenever, which both mean "juniper".The 1911 Encyclopædia states that the word gin is an abbreviation of "Geneva", both words being derived from the French genièvre (juniper).

Gin became popular in England after the government allowed unlicensed gin production and at the same time imposed a heavy duty on all imported spirits. This created a market for poor-quality grain that was unfit for brewing beer, and thousands of gin-shops sprang up throughout England, a period known as the Gin Craze. By 1740 the production of gin had increased to six times that of beer and because of its cheapness it became popular with the poor. Of the 15,000 drinking establishments in London, over half were gin-shops. Beer maintained a healthy reputation as it was often safer to drink the brewed ale than unclean plain water. Gin, though, was blamed for various social and medical problems, and it may have been a factor in the higher death rates which stabilized London's previously growing population.The reputation of the two drinks was illustrated by William Hogarth in his engravings Beer Street and Gin Lane (1751). This negative reputation survives today in the English language, in terms like "gin-mills" or "gin-joints" to describe disreputable bars or "gin-soaked" to refer to drunks, and in the phrase "Mother's Ruin," a common British name for gin.

The Negroni cocktail is made of 1 part gin, 1 part sweet vermouth, and 1 part bitters, traditionally Campari. It is considered an apéritif, a pre-dinner cocktail intended to stimulate the appetite.