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THE SCIENCE BEHIND BOMBAY SAPPHIRES
Bombay Sapphire gin is a
Bacardi brand.
The first part of the name hints at the popularity
of gin in British India.
The second part reflects the color of the bottle as well as the exquisite nature of the gin, as
Bombay sapphires are exceedingly rare.
The liquid is distilled three times, the alcohol vapors passing through the above ten
ingredients.
Then, according to this
Wikipedia page,
water from Lake Vyrnwy in Wales
is added.
The bottle
The bottle is the color of blue sapphire and carries the image of Queen Victoria of the British Empire.
The sapphires
Sapphires are gems that belong to the
corundum family.
Corundum is a very hard mineral; its hardness is 9
on the Mohs scale.
Corundum consists of
aluminum and oxygen: Al2O3.
Sapphires are yellow or blue corundum. Blue corundum contains some iron (Fe) and titanium (Ti). Yellow
corundum contains trivalent iron (Fe3+), green corundum divalent iron (Fe2+).
Ruby is red corundum and owes its color to chromium (Cr).
The inspiration for the gin's name was
the 60-carat "Star of Bombay" sapphire,
which was discovered in Sri Lanka and is now in the Smithsonian Institute. Star sapphires contain
needles of rutile, a titanium mineral.
The geology
Mumbai - as Bombay is called nowadays - has a unique geology. It is located on the famous
Deccan Traps,
a large basalt area.
Basalts are lavas, igneous rocks with a very different chemistry than
that of syenites
and the particular associated
pegmatites in which
corundum can be found. Chemically speaking, basalt is almost on the complete other
end of the entire range of rocks.
That
makes Bombay sapphires exceedingly rare. They're a geological impossibility.
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Bombay Sapphire gin is a
Sapphires are yellow or blue corundum. Blue corundum contains some iron (Fe) and titanium (Ti). Yellow
corundum contains trivalent iron (Fe3+), green corundum divalent iron (Fe2+).
Ruby is red corundum and owes its color to chromium (Cr).
Basalts are lavas, igneous rocks with a very different chemistry than
that of 
