While enjoying a round (or more) of gin and tonics, it’s likely the latter ingredient that draws intrigue. Maybe you’re sipping and analyzing the botanicals, or comparing how it stacks up in mixed form to other bottles. Yet even when examined on its own, tonic water is a fascinating beverage that carries around quite a bit of history.
Opposed to other bubbly cocktail mixers like club soda or seltzer, tonic contains minerals, sugar, citric acid, and most notably quinine. Such ingredients lend the beverage its unique bittersweet and slightly tart composition, but their original inclusion wasn’t just for the palate. Instead, the tonic water’s story all starts with the Cinchona, a flowering tree also called the Andean fever tree. Native to the Western part of South America, this plant is what contains the bitter tasting quinine; a hallmark of the beverage.
The Cinchona tree contains many alkaloids, and in turn medical qualities, an effect known by indigenous people. And after contact with European missionaries in the early 1600s, its healing reputation started to spread globally. Most famously, the quinine could slow the symptoms of malaria, a quality that popularized the tree’s bark throughout Europe and other colonized areas. Then, in the 18th century, sparkling waters at large became more fashionable, and was still associated with health benefits. In 1858, quinine merged with carbonated water to create patented tonic water, first sold for its health benefits. A few decades later, the bubbly water’s combination with gin took off, forming the now iconic duo, and reaffirming tonic water into drinks history.
Tonic water started as a marketable form for a quinine beverage
Although the beverage’s bitter palate is why tonic water pairs so well with gin, the drink’s quinine composition tells a different story. In the beginning, the Cinchona tree grew in South America with its own set of medical practices among indigenous peoples. There was no association with malaria — in fact, scientists cite the disease had yet to arrive on the continent.
Everything changed when Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century encountered the tree’s rapid fever fighting qualities. Over just a few decades, the effects of the Cinchona became known in Europe, where malaria proliferated at the time. And the contained quinine proved especially effective for further colonial expeditions, into areas like West Africa and South Asia. Consequently, desire for the tree bark led to exploitative labor practices in the Americas. Colonialist powers coerced local laborers to locate and harvest the often-rugged growing trees, often without pay. By the 19th century, the model switched to plantation harvests in India and Indonesia. Such colonialist-founded sourcing supplied the quinine for tonic water into the 20th century — a beverage that enjoyed extra popularity in tropical locales.
Come the 1920s, laboratory-made anti-malarial analogues emerged, phasing out quinine as the predominant drug. Today, the small amounts of the alkaloid in tonic water are permitted, but as noted by Medical News Today, quinine itself is known for several negative side effects. So, whether you’re infusing a bottle of flat tonic water for a mocktail or crafting the iconic gin cocktail, remember the heavy history the beverage carries.
