A few years ago I started drinking vodka-soda for the first time. I’d never had much vodka. If I did drink any clear liquor, it was usually gin. Gin and tonic. I loved gin and tonic. It was the first drink of spring and perfect for a hot summer’s day. It was good for Christmas, the juniper holiday. It was the classic drink from America’s British heritage. So when I started drinking vodka-soda, I was puzzled. What had changed? Why was it so good? Where had I gone astray?
It all started at a wedding. It was July in South Carolina, one of the hotter summers I remember. And the reception was outside in the afternoon. Not surprisingly, the night before I’d been on gin and tonic, drinking in a dingy, smoky pub. I woke up with cottonmouth, hot and clammy, and I knew something had to change. It was the tonic. The bar-gun tonic. The plastic Schweppes bottle tonic. This was the culprit. The fake sugar flavor and the hangover it caused were too much with the heat. I couldn’t do it anymore. So that afternoon, post-wedding, still hot and hurting from the night before but ready for a drink, I ordered my first vodka-soda.
Now, I don’t want to knock the vodka-soda. I drink them from time to time to this day. But as I further understood that my change of preference was not so much the vodka for the gin but the soda for the tonic, I thought I’d reached a point of no return. That was until I heard about a remedy—an invigorating, refreshing, and restorative agent: a real Tonic.
The first Tonics I tried were the hip premium brands like Fever-Tree, which were doing the same thing as Schweppes, except better. I had a few specialty mixes in fancy cocktail bars in New York that were unique if overdone, but at least they were fresh. When I moved back South, I had the Jack Rudy cocktail syrup made by Fig’s barman in Charleston, Sc. This stuff was a great reminder of what Tonic could be, and it was more fun to work with, almost like a simple syrup. Most importantly, these variations helped me recognize the potential for Tonic. I was seeking the bitter, slightly sweet flavor that made you feel good, even the morning after.
By this time, I had returned to Athens, Ga., to work alongside Chris Luken, the barman who’d shown me the ropes at Five & Ten and brought me along to The National six years ago. We were determined to take on tonic ourselves. I don’t think either one of us knew how good it could be. We worked up the bare bones of a recipe, tried a few different versions with the same ingredients and then added some new ones. The result made us thirsty.
The first step was quinine. Quinine is found naturally in the bark of the cinchona tree, native to South America, particularly Peru. The indigenous people there historically used it as remedy for fever and chills. As is well known, the birth of the Gin & Tonic occurred when the British began to mix their tonic pills with gin in colonial India to “fight” malaria. The natural bark, usually in chopped or preferably powder form, is indispensable to any real Tonic. Not only does it taste better; it seriously makes you feel better.
After the cinchona, we added a variety of citrus zests and peels and leaves and grasses. Lemongrass and lime leaves were first, then zests of those fruits and dried peels from oranges. We also rediscovered the importance of the grapefruit. Years earlier, when The National first opened, Chris and I had made a simple cocktail with grapefruit, bourbon, and Blenheim’s spicy ginger ale in a pint glass. We called it The National Tonic, oddly prefiguring what was to come. Experimenting continued from there with a variety of herbs and spices, rosemary and mint, rosebuds and petals and hips, hawthorne and juniper berries and, in late fall and winter, star anise.
The results have been strong, and even the weaker versions have taught us a thing or two. For example, some of the dark red cinchona can be overwhelming, whereas the slightly reddish brown powder seems to impart the desired flavor without making it bite too hard. Good citrus is crucial. Rose buds are really fun, but mostly for color. If you choose the right gin, which is to say dry English gin, you may not need the extra juniper. Always use star anise in moderation, even for the fall and winter versions, which tend to invite more. Citric acid helps it keep. A little salt makes everything better. And so forth and so on.
So here’s the process—the exact recipe is top secret, but really, as with most good things, the process is as fun as the product.
Get the key ingredients together: cinchona powder, lemon and lime grapefruit zest and juice, grass and leaves, herbs and spices and berries. Add an appropriate amount of water—roughly a gallon per cup of cinchona—and bring it to a boil. Remove the mix from the heat, cover and steep. The steeping is important. The longer you are able to steep, the better your bittering flavor. If we’re talking rules of thumb, 3-4 hours is reasonable, but at least one hour, even overnight. Then strain off all the goodies using a fine strainer. Don’t be scared to use a cheesecloth or coffee filter. The cinchona doesn’t dissolve well so you’ll want strain off as much as possible after you’ve done the boiling and steeping. Keep in mind that a real Tonic is going to have a reddish color with suspended powder no matter what, but there’s no need to overdo it. Finally, add some sugar to sweeten. This is where you can really go wrong. Remember how the whole idea was to feel good? To make some something invigorating, refreshing and restorative? A real Tonic? Well, too much sugar makes you feel like shit, both immediately and the next day. My guide has been to measure the amount of steeped and strained liquid and add one-quarter to one-third of that measure in sugar. Always err on the short side of sugar.
Play around until it tastes good and feels right. That’s why we started down this path in the first place.
How to drink:
- Fill a rocks glass appropriately with rocks
- Add 1¾-2 oz. dry English gin and ¾-1 oz. Tonic syrup
- Top with soda water. Garnish with a slice of lemon or lime.
Fight your fever.
Story by Hunt Revell
Photographs by Paige French