The most important words of the night came when Dave said he'd tried using it where recipes called for gin and it never tasted right. Then he tried using it in place of whiskey, and it worked perfectly. Out here in Ealing, we've been mixing Manhattans with Bokma 5-year for quite some time but never really thought about why it worked until Dave said he'd hit on it, too. Genever's production—malted grain, pot stills—has a lot more in common with whiskey than gin. 

I always loved new make and white dog, the unaged spirit that becomes whisk(e)y after a long rest in a barrel. But it never occurred to me that genever is basically new make flavored with juniper. 

Here's Bols master distiller Piet van Leijenhorst, looking like a proud father: