Nelson & His World

I recently got round to reading the book: "The Much-Lamented Death of Madam Geneva - The Eighteenth-century Gin Craze"

I found this passage interesting:

In 1790, Thomas Pennant made a tour of London, publishing a book to describe what he saw. One day he took a boat across the river to Lambeth, and there he halted in amazement. he found himself looking at "the vast distilleries, till of late the property of Sir Joseph Mawbey".

There weren't just stills and vats on the site. For years, distillers had been profiting from sidelines as well. Pennant commented that "there are seldom less than two thousand hogs grunting at this place, which are kept entirely on the grains". Distillers hogs victualled the navy which was spreading British empire overseas.

MB

As well as distillers' hog meat, I imagine a fair amount of gin was also taken aboard many a ship. 'Pink gin' or 'gin and bitters' is (or was) popular with naval officers.

Here is wiki on the subject;

Pink gin is a typically English way of enjoying gin. It is widely agreed that the drink was first created by members of the Royal Navy, as a way of making Angostura bitters more enjoyable. [1]

Angostura bitters were discovered as a cure for sea sickness in 1824 by Dr. Johann Gottlieb Benjamin Siegert (though their other medicinal uses had been discovered long before this), [2] who subsequently formed the House of Angostura, a company selling the bitters to sailors.

The Royal Navy then brought the idea for the drink to bars in England, [3] where this method of serving was first noted on the mainland. By the 1870s, gin was becoming increasingly popular and many of the finer establishments in England were serving Pink Gin. [4]