Navy Strength Gin is an intense but smooth gin, made for cocktails. This overproof gin is distilled with native finger limes and fresh ginger in the botanical basket, giving it great power and intensity. Turmeric adds weight to the palate and a fresh but earthy quality, and the palate is sweet and juicy but still very clean. Back in the nineteenth century gin was thought to be panacea to many things encountered on the high seas. The gimlet was invented by a doctor in the Royal Navy to ward off scurvy, with gin to fortify and Roses Lime cordial for Vitamin C. But several of the more gin-savvy officers of the Royal Navy suspected their supplies of gin were being diluted so they devised a test. Often the gin was stored below deck adjacent to the gunpowder and if it was spilt onto the gunpowder and it smoked, the gin had been diluted. Only if the gunpowder still lit was the gin at least 114 proof (or 57% ABV). And so it became known as Navy Strength.