Philippines comprises 7,641 islands in the western Pacific Ocean and is home to approximately 100 million people. After Russia and South Korea, the Philippines have the highest per capita consumption of alcohol in the world. Distilling has been known in the islands since at least 1521, when Ferdinand Magellan and his crew found both palm and rice arrack in use. Of the rice version they encountered on the western island of Palawan (which may have been imported from Southeast China), Antonio Pigafetta, one of the explorers, wrote that it “is as clear as water, but so strong that it intoxicated many of our men.” In 1574, a Spanish expedition leader, Andres de Mirandaola, wrote to the king of Spain that natives made distilled “wines” of sugar cane, rice, millet, and various palm species. Over subsequent centuries, that palm arrack, known locally as At the beginning of the twentieth century, the most widely consumed spirits in the Philippines were domestic compounded gins and various anise-flavored cordials (anisado, anis, anisette, carabanchel, and mallorca) made with essential oils. They jockeyed for first place with vino/bino de coco and vino de nipa, the Spanish names for the lambanogs made from coconut- and nipa-palm sap, respectively (about 35 percent ABV). Today, drinkers throughout the Philippines enjoy brands such as Emperador brandy, Tanduay rum, White Castle whisky, and other distilled spirits, but gin reigns supreme. Filipino gin consumption (1.4 liters per person per year) is the highest in the world and accounts for approximately half of all gin sales globally. The bulk of that gin is made by Ginebra San Miguel, founded in 1834. See also arrack, coconut; compounding; gin; lambanog; and nipa. “Filipinos 3rd Heaviest Drinkers in the World.” Philippine Star, February 6, 2014. Flores, Wilson Lee. “10 Success Secrets of the Philippines’ Oldest Distillery.” Philippine Star, December 21, 2015. Gibbs, H. D., and W. C. Holmes. “The Alcohol Industry of the Philippine Islands, Part II: Distilled Liquors, Their Consumption and Manufacture.” Philippine Journal of Science 7A, no. 1 (1912): 19–46. “High Spirits.” Economist, June 17, 2013. Pigafetta, Antonio. The First Voyage around the World. Edited and translated by Theodore J. Cachey. New York: Marsilio, 1995. By: Matthew Rowley
