May 11, 2012

What's in a Name, Tanqueray

When he was a young boy, Charles Tanqueray’s path through life seemed pretty clear. He was the product of three straight generations of Bedfordshire clergymen, so it was assumed he would take up the cloth himself.

He decided to do something different and began distilling gin in 1830 in a little plant in London’s Bloomsbury district. By 1847, he was shipping his gin to colonies around the British Empire, where many plantation owners and troops had developed a taste for Tanqueray and tonic.