Tanqueray

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.

Tanqueray is also unusual in that it uses only four botanicals: juniper, coriander seeds, angelica root, and liquorice.

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.