Quinine Water
Next time you squash a mosquito also remember to thank it. After all, the annoying bloodsuckers played a part in the creation of one of summer’s greatest libations: the tart, bracing, yet always refreshing Gin & Tonic.
Perhaps it’s more accurate to credit the insects as the impetus for quinine water, the mixer, which usually accounts for more than half the glass. The soft drink, which now carries the vague sobriquet “tonic,” was invented as a delivery system for the treatment of malaria. The disease, carried by mosquitos, was a major impediment for migratory Europeans as they made outposts around the world. Indigenous South Americans shared that the bark of the cinchona, or fever, tree, was an effective prophylactic, and for centuries it would remain the only treatment. However, the bark makes a bitter powder. Brits applied the spoonful-of-sugar-makes-the-medicine-go-down logic to the problem and mixed cinchona with gin, water and sweeteners. You’ve heard people say with a wink and a nudge “for medicinal purposes only” as an excuse for taking a drink? Well, this was the drink that actually worked.
A preparation of quinine, sugar and seltzer was bottled in 1858 and caught on in the tropics. In 1868, the G&T got its first written reference as the preferred post-race pairing with cigars at a track in India. But the drink failed to show in the United States. Malaria was never widespread here and imported quinine water was a luxury. The recipe was all but absent from American cocktail books until the mid-20th century.
Fortunes changed when GIs serving in World War II returned with a taste for the drink. Then in the 1950s, despite the patrician image of its spokesman Commander Whitehead, Schweppes democratized quinine water by producing it in Pennsylvania. It didn’t hurt that the dashing young John F. Kennedy was a fan.
But domestication wasn’t always kind. Formulas were adjusted to serve America’s sweet tooth with corn syrup and quelling the quinine quotient that gives the drink its zip. Then entered the cocktail revival, demanding artisanal ingredients. The market has duly responded. Citrusy Fever-Tree sources quinine from the Congo and uses cane sugar. Lemony Q is sweetened with agave, Buzbee’s with honey. Fentiman’s is informed by lemongrass. All are exciting enough partners with your favorite gin that you can skip the mosquito bite.
