Charles Tanqueray’s path through life seemed pretty clear while growing up. He followed three straight generations of Bedfordshire clergymen, so it seemed natural that he would grow up and be a man of the cloth himself.
Instead, he started distilling gin in 1830 in a tiny plant in London’s Bloomsbury district. Fifteen years later, 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.