Hendrick's Gin with a bit of Victorian excess

I had to really think about writing about Hendrick's gin. I'm not that keen on it so it was tempting not to bother, but then it's been so influential that it seemed wrong not to. I don't think it's coincidence that I've really struggled to think of a book to match it.

Hendrick's was launched in 2001, its success, and it is successful, setting the template for modern gin branding. I've heard Hendrick's described as a good gin to start with if you're not sure you like gin - the juniper is there but it's held in check by the cucumber and Rose elements that are added after distillation - and that's precisely why I'm not very excited by it. It's a perfectly nice gin, I take no issue with the cucumber garnish (I wouldn't object if you wanted to stick a rose in it either), but it simply isn't juniper forward enough for me. That's an entirely personal response, a gin doesn't get to be as popular as Hendrick's through marketing alone, it's a very well made spirit that deserves its fan base.

Not that I want to undersell the marketing though, it is a triumph, and worth celebrating. 15 years down the line it's perhaps hard to remember how fresh Hendrick's looked. The bottle shape and colour, the Victorian style decoration, the humour, even the tea cups... Hendrick's basically persuaded a generation of drinkers that gin was cool again (it is, they were right). They keep making it fun, and I don't doubt for a moment that they'll continue to do so, and that in itself is more than enough to make me raise a glass to them.

Book wise I feel Hendrick's calls for something that really celebrates Victorian eccentricity and excess. If I knew much about steam punk (beyond that it's a thing) I'm pretty sure I could find something perfect, but it's not a genre I've read. I suspect Jules Verne or H. G. Wells in science fiction mode would be appropriate but I've only seen films so they would be cheating. Wilkie Collins at his most sensational might do (I'm thinking 'Poor Miss Finch' levels of plotting craziness) but then the gin is perhaps to serious for that (allusions to blue ruin notwithstanding). It's a reminder that I ought to read some Florence Marryat or, Sheridan Le Fanu, but as I haven't...

The obvious choice for me ends up being collections of Victorian ghost stories and Gothic tales. This is partly in recognition of the current Hendrick's box which references the Victorian fascination with spiritualism and raising spirits, but mostly because I love this kind of thing.

Hide And Seek – Wilkie Collins

I’m suffering from the beginnings of what looks like being a really horrible cold (I’m taking it like a man) and have been procrastinating all day but it’s time to pull myself together, tear myself away from River Cottage which has been cheering me up for the last hour, and focus on Wilkie Collins.

Collins is my favourite Victorian writer by a distance (so far), I’ve tried with Dickens but have never really got beyond feeling quite worthy for making the effort. Why Dickens is so much better beloved is something I wonder about every time I pick up a Collins book, and ‘Hide and Seek’ has proved no exception to that rule, now I’ve finished it I find I’m missing it – a hard read to follow.

It’s not about the plot which in this case centres on a mysterious deaf and dumb girl. She’s a poor orphan who’s been raised in a circus, and is seen and rescued by an artist by the name of Valentine Blyth who takes her home to his bedridden wife. Terrified of losing the girl they christen Madonna (because of her resemblance to a Raphael Madonna) Valentine keeps what little he knows of her past a closely guarded secret. It’s a short but sad history of a dying mother with a starving baby – a Good Samaritan takes pity on her suckling the baby, and agreeing to foster the infant Madonna (real name Mary) according to her mother’s dying wish.

Madonna grows into a lovely and happy young woman secure in her family and on the verge of falling in love with one Zach Thorpe – the exuberant son of a strictly puritanical father. An ill advised foray to a low bar brings Zach into contact with a mysterious stranger, and leads to his speedy exit from home, and this is where the plot thickens. Through a series of extraordinary coincidences the stranger turns out to be Madonna’s Uncle (through some equally unlikely coincidences Zach will turn out to be her brother), but as I said before it’s not really about the plot...

There are two things about this book that really made it sing for me. The first was the story of Valentine himself – he’s a very mediocre artist, but that doesn’t stop him living for and by his art in the most sincere way possible. It sustains him against every disappointment and brings untold pleasure with it – I like to paint and once had artistic ambitions and can’t tell you how true this rang for me, as well as being a happy reminder of something I hadn’t given much thought to recently.

The second was the story of Mary Grice the hapless young mother. She’s young, innocent, and not altogether wise when she falls in love, and falls from virtue – for which she pays a very heavy price. Forced to flee from her home she’s cheated of her savings and left alone and friendless; an absolute outcast from society. It’s a harsh punishment for a momentary lapse from virtue, but very much the correct fate for a Victorian maiden who strayed. It’s worth remembering too that it’s not very long since having a child out of wedlock was a disgrace. My grandmother put the fear of god in my mother when she was a teenager in the sixties by telling her that pregnancy would result in all of them being thrown out of home (it’s just possible that my grandfather would have done it to – that or not raised an eyebrow). Granny was speaking from not altogether happy experience of her own youthful mishap.

Collins however makes it clear that Mary is a relatively innocent victim, the reader is first invited to apportion blame to her seducer, and then the finger is unmistakably pointed at evangelical puritans; those who live by the bible but without an ounce of Christian charity. Mary’s lover is ignorant of her fate – he’s never given the chance to make things right. Her father would have forgiven and sheltered her, but he too is denied that chance. As everything unfolds it’s equally moving and thought provoking; if Collins could find a sympathetic audience in the 1850’s why was illegitimacy still such a disgrace 100 years later?

The Dead Secret – Wilkie Collins

Autumn isn’t my favourite time of year – I don’t mind winter but there’s something about the descent into it that I find dispiriting, but there are compensations. One of them is that autumn feels like the perfect season for Victoriana especially the more sensational kind and this September is being improved for me by Wilkie Collins.

There are a handful of his books I’ve been eyeing up for a read for a while and after ‘The Crimson Petal and The White’ I wanted to stay vaguely in period so went for ‘The Dead Secret’. It starts with a death bed scene followed by a dawn flight from a foreboding Cornish tower, and skips quickly to a dawn wedding some years later. In-between these events the only evidence of a Secret is hidden in said Cornish mansion...

When Rosamond Treverton marries Leonard Frankland it seems to be the most serendipitous of unions – childhood friends who fell in love, Leonards father has bought the Treverton family seat (that mysterious Cornish mansion again) Rosamond brings the money back to the family. Leonard Frankland has two important idiosyncrasies; he’s recently become blind and he’s very proud. His family were once landed gentry but more recently the money’s come from trade, something his father has taught him to be ever so slightly ashamed of. He believes in keeping a proper distance from the lower orders, in fact fundamentally believes in the idea of lower orders.

Rosamond is free from these particular prejudices, she’s a happy, loving, open hearted, and cheerful young woman devoted to her husband. If she has a fault it’s a quick and passionate temper. As the young couple journey south to take up their inheritance they are somewhat delayed by Rosamond producing a son and heir a month early. During her convalescence at a country inn she’s attended by a mysterious nurse who seems strangely agitated and warns her to avoid the Myrtle room at all costs when she reaches her new home.

All this warning does is determine Rosamond to find the room and reveal its secret – and here’s where the resemblance to ‘Cousin Henry’ comes in. The secret is contained in a hidden document which has the power to destroy Rosamond’s happiness and deprive her of her fortune in one fell swoop. She’s faced with the choice of telling her husband everything and hoping that love is enough to overcome his pride, or of destroying all evidence of a Secret no-one even suspects – something that would be made even simpler by Leonards blindness.

I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to say that it all ends happily – both Leonard and Rosamond are unhesitatingly honest but this is by no means all there is to the book. In good Collins style there are a host of other bit players vividly drawn and displaying a plethora of eccentricities, there’s also the hint of a ghost story that conjures both real suspense and comedy into a particularly fraught part of proceedings.

Its Collins touches of comedy and the grotesque that make him so dear to me as a writer, but I think it’s his social conscience that elevates him to classic status. If ‘The Dead Secret’ is anything it’s an attack on the idea of class superiority. Here fortune is an accident – not even one of birth, what matters is a good and true heart, the rest being down to education and opportunity. Collins plays with ideas of legitimacy and identity in several of his novels, and reading ‘The Dead Secret’ it struck me again that surely some of the things he suggests must have been shocking to the society he belonged to. I think there’s some pretty revolutionary socialism going on here – as well as a turning on the head of my pre-conceived notions of what a Victorian audience would have found acceptable. Anyway I’m blowing the trumpet for Wilkie Collins – I think he deserves far more attention – especially when it comes to the lesser known novels, as the nights draw in and the duvet calls you can’t do much better for thought provoking entertainment!

The Augustus Egg painting above (one of a triptych called 'Past and Present') is just because I like it and because I feel it's in the spirit of Collins, though Collins would never allow such injustice to pass unpunished!