The Cotton gin is a machine invented in 1793 purportedly by American Eli Whitney (granted a patent on March 14, 1794) to mechanize the production of cotton fiber. The machine quickly and easily separates the cotton fibers from the seedpods and the sometimes sticky seeds. It uses a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through the screen, while brushes continuously remove the loose cotton lint to prevent jams.
The traditional account of Whitney's invention of the gin tells of his being inspired by the sight of a cat clawing a chicken through the slatted walls of its coop and retrieving a paw full of feathers.
There exists controversy over whether the idea of the cotton gin and its constituent elements can rightly be attributed to Eli Whitney; unresolved is whether or not Catherine Littlefield Greene should be credited with the invention of the cotton gin, or at least its inception. It is known that she associated with Eli Whitney (along with other historical figures such as George and Martha Washington). Additional credence is lent by the fact that women were not allowed patents in American antiquity.
Cotton gin patent, March 14, 1794
Small cotton gins were hand-powered; larger ones were harnessed to horses or water wheels.
The cotton gin revolutionised the cotton-growing industry because it vastly increased the quantity of cotton that could be processed in a day. This made the widespread raising of cotton profitable in the American South, and is often considered to have greatly increased the demand for slave labor.
The word gin in "cotton gin" is unrelated to the drink called gin; it is related to the word engine and means "device".
Gin and its Lowlands cousin Genever (Jenever in Belgium) are white spirits that are flavored with juniper berries and so-called botanicals (a varied assortment of herbs and spices).
British gins tend to be high proof (90° or 45% ABV) and citrus-accented from the use of driedlemon and Seville orange peels in the mix of botanicals.
Gin, on the other hand, did not require any aging, and was relatively easy to make by mixing raw alcohol with juniper berry extract and other flavorings and spices in a large container such as a bathtub (thus the origin of the term "Bathtub Gin").
Gin is usually made by the re-distillation of white grain spirit with the berries - though sometimes (compound gin) simply by flavouring the spirit with berries (and not re-distilling).
The dryness of gin results in its being served to most non-connoisseurs only after mixing with sweeter ingredients : tonic water (in a gin and tonic) and vermouth (in a "martini" or "gin and it") are probably the best-known additions.
A common ready-sweetened form of gin is sloegin, a liqueur traditionally made by infusing sloes (the fruit of the flthorn) in gin.
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