An inspiring true story about my friend's grandmother.

I'd like to tell you a little-known, but inspiring and true story that involves my friend Jake's grandmother.

Her name was Erica. She lived a typical grandmother life, knitting, spoiling her grandchildren and puttering around.

But despite having lived a full life before retiring, she wanted something more. So she decided to take her love of gin and turn it into a hobby. Erica painstakingly researched different recipes for gin, mixed them with her cooking expertise, and experimented for months with different ratios, strainers and ingredients.

After many months of working on her various gins, one of her friends, Stacy, came over to her house one night and happened to try one of the drinks. Stacy found it so delicious that she suggested that Erica should try selling some of her various flavors of gin. Erica did just that, starting at the local farmer's market, and when her popularity increased, she began mass producing her most-loved flavors of gin.

Erica's gin quickly became hailed as one of the best-grade gins in the world, earning awards and feature articles in popular publications.

It wouldn't last though. Erica's life was tragically cut short by a heart attack, and with her death came the death of her secret recipes. Many people would try to recreate Erica's gin for years to come, yet no one could find the proper mixtures of ingredients.

But Stacy, the one who pushed her to start her business, never gave up. She searched and searched, looking through purchase logs and transactions for the suppliers of Erica's juniper berries, malt, and other ingredients. Stacy worked nights and weekends for months on end, ardently refining her product, until, amazingly, she came across the perfect recipe. Erica's original gin recipe. It tasted exactly like the first gin Erica had made that fateful night years before. Stacy brought the original Erica brand of gin back to the world, and gin-lovers the world over rejoiced at her work.

The moral of this story is thus: With hard work and perseverance, you too can Make An erica Grade-A gin.