Tonic it is .....

A few weeks ago I was at the east bay restaurant Pizzaiolo and ordered their Gin with homemade Tonic. To my great surprise a lovely reddish brown drink was set before me. The drink was unbelievable, earthy and complex but amazingly refreshing. It did have that unmistakable Tonic flavor but was worlds away from the Schweppes that I'd gotten used to. After a few weeks of not being able to get the drink out of my head I decided to tackle making homemade tonic of my own. A little internet research led me to a number of recipes that I decided to blend and hope for the best. Most of the ingredients were fairly simple to find (lemongrass, allspice, limes, oranges, lemons, agave) except for the Quinine, which I was forced to order from a hippie website . Even though you won't ever see a total or receipt if you order from here, I promise you it is legit and Quinine powder will come your way.

With all the ingredients assembled before me I couldn't help but contemplate the origins of Tonic water. It seems like somewhat common knowledge that Tonic has been used for hundreds of years as an anti-malarial and digestive, but with the fixings sitting on my table I felt truly sentimental for the great history that this drink possesses. It turns out that Tonic was first used to treat Malaria in Rome in the early 1600's. A Jesuit priest had been exposed to this bark in Lima where tribes referred to it as "quina-quina", which roughly means "bark of bark" or "holy bark". He then shipped the Quinine back to Rome where the first versions of Tonic were born. It wasn't until the 1800's when the Brits got involved that people started to mix their medicinal quinine tonic with gin to make it more palatable, and thus truly created the beverage we consume now. With the historical knowledge under my belt I was ready to create a batch of my own, so I teamed up with two friends and made it happen.

The actual cooking was fairly simple. Throw all of the ingredients in a pot, bring them to a boil and let them cook for about 20 min. The somewhat tricky part comes in the filtering process. All of the recipes that I had read suggest using coffee filters but that proved next to impossible for us so after some trial and error we went with a series of cloth filters. First running the mixture through cheese cloth, then a gingham like fabric we had on hand, and finally a cotton sheeting to finish the process. Once that is done you simply mix agave or sugar or whatever other sweet element you choose into the liquid and you end up with a beautiful frothy brew the color of amber. Pleased as could be, we filled our jugs and mixed our drinks and dove in for a taste. With our first sips we looked at each other somewhat surprised. The bawdy drink we had in our hands tasted remarkably like a flavor we knew ..... that's right, Tonic! I should say this drink is not for the weak palated. It's strong and tangy but of course that is precisely why I'm going to have a very hard time going back to the bottled variety. Here is a link to the recipe that I used as my main guide. I encourage you to make a batch and experience this hearty beverage for yourself.