Genever: Where Gin Meets Whiskey (Sort Of)

Although not widely known in the U.S., this botanical, malt-based spirit is making a comeback.

- Jeff Cioletti

I USED TO THINK OF MYSELF as a whiskey person. Then I started to get into gin and began having a bit of an identity crisis. I even felt bad that I was cheating on whiskey. Good thing then that genever’s making a comeback because now, I can have the best of both worlds without the guilt.

Genever (sometimes spelled jenever) is the Dutch forerunner of gin. English soldiers discovered the juniper-flavored spirit in the 17th century while fighting the Thirty Years War in the Netherlands and the region that’s now Belgium. The Brits developed their own version back home, which came to be known as gin.

Though both beverages combine juniper with complex blends of other botanicals, their spirit bases are dramatically different. The base of modern gin—particularly the variety known as London dry gin—is usually neutral, while genever’s base contains malt wine, a grain distillate (usually malted barley combined with other cereals like rye and wheat) more akin to a young whiskey. When we taste gin, the botanicals take center stage. When we sip genever, the juniper and other botanicals hang back a bit and share the spotlight with the malty, grainy, sometimes nutty character of its base.