History of Tanqueray Gin
The history of Tanqueray Gin goes back to 19th century London, and Charles and Edward Tanqueray, and today it is the best-selling gin brand in the world.
The famous gin brand Tanqueray was founded in London, England, in 1830 by brothers Charles and Edward Tanqueray. The original gin that they distilled, Tanqueray London Dry Gin, is still sold today.
It was a good time to be opening a distillery as in 1832 the continuous distillation method was invented. This allowed for the making of more refined gins. Till then the most popular gin style was Old Tom, which used sugar to mask some of gin’s imperfections. With continuous distillation, this additional sweetness wasn’t needed, Tanqueray was one of the first to create this new London Dry Gin style.
The Tanqueray Recipe
Tanqueray is also unusual in that it uses only four botanicals: juniper, coriander seeds, angelica root, and liquorice.
History of Tanqueray Gin
Charles Tanqueray was born in 1810 and was the son and grandson of clergymen. He was more interested in science, though, and in particular the science of making gin. He and his brother Edward got jobs at a distillery, where they learned the skills of the gin-maker.
A few years after founding their own Tanqueray Distillery in 1830, Charles and his brother opened a shop to sell their gin, and from there the company expanded until, in 2016, it overtook Beefeater as the best-selling gin brand in the world with over 3 million cases of their various gins sold. The key gin, though, still remains that original Tanqueray London Dry Gin.
Sadly Edward died a few years after opening the distillery and shop, and Charles ran the company alone. He eventually retired to Scotland and his son Charles Waugh took over the family gin business. The company continued to thrive and in 1898 Charles Waugh negotiated a merger with their big rival, Gordon’s Gin.
Together they made up the biggest gin company in the world, though they retained their two separate identities. However, while Gordon’s mainly targeted the UK market, Tanqueray focused more on the USA, where it thrived. Indeed, the first drink taken in the White House by President Roosevelt to mark the end of Prohibition in 1933 was a Tanqueray and Tonic.
Where is Tanqueray Gin Made?
The Tanqueray Distillery remained in the heart of London until World War II, when much of it was destroyed in German air raids. Only their Old Tom still survived. However, the distillery was rebuilt and went back into business, and stayed in London until the 1980s when it relocated to a purpose-built distillery about 30 miles away in Essex.
In 1995 the distillery moved again, this time to Cameronbridge, in Fife, Scotland, taking this archetypal English gin company into whisky territory. Little did they know that a huge boom in Scottish gin-making was on the way. Charles and Edward Tanqueray would have been delighted by that.