Tonic to my Gin
The drinks manufacturer Fever Tree advertises its products with the slogan "If three quarters of your G&T is the tonic, wouldn't you want it to be the best?" I can take issue with the proportions mentioned (If I were served a drink that was 75% tonic, I'd send it back!), but the principal is good. We should be paying as much attention to the quality of our mixer as we do to the gin. I've recently been experimenting with making my own tonic water. There are any number of online recipes, and I've been working my way through them to see which suits me best. All home-made tonics are made as a flavoured syrup, to which soda water is added at the point of serving. At its most basic, this can be a simple syrup of quinine, citric acid and sugar, very similar to the medicinal tonics that were first added to gin in the seventeenth century. Most online suggestions are more complex than that, using citrus peels, juices, herbs and/or spices to create a more layered exp