The Gin and Tonic

The Gin and Tonic is a member of the highball category of drink, combining a spirit (typically London dry gin) with a carbonated, nonalcoholic mixer (in this case tonic or quinine water), and served on ice in a highball glass. See Highball. The drink dates back to the latter part of the nineteenth century, from most accounts in British colonial India, with British soldiers mixing gin with their antimalarial quinine water. While a great many cocktail origin stories don’t hold up to factual scrutiny, the Gin and Tonic’s might just be accurate: it first appears in print in an 1868 description of the races at Sealkote (now Sialkot), near Lahore, and as early as 1881 it is referred to as “the drink most patronised in India.”

Quinine is an extract from the bark of the cinchona tree, native to South America. See tonic water. It was identified by the indigenous peoples of that continent, as well as French and Italian researchers, as being of use in treating chills, fever, and malaria, all common in tropical climes. On May 28, 1858, Britain’s Erasmus Bond patented the first “aerated tonic liquid,” soda water spiked with quinine (an extract of South American chinchona bark)—in other words, tonic water. It was first sold only in India and other British possessions in the tropics, and indeed was rather a rarity elsewhere until the 1920s.

Traditionally, the Gin and Tonic is made with twice as much tonic water as gin, with a garnish of either a wedge of lime (most common) or lemon (more popular in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth nations). The drink only made it to America in the mid-1930s, but it rapidly became a summertime classic. It is featured in Charles H. Baker Jr.’s seminal 1939 book, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, David Embury agreed, noting that “four to five cubes is none too much for a 14- to 16- ounce Collins glass. There is nothing more insipid than a lukewarm drink.” See Embury, David A. As to quantity, Baker offered the following warning to “those who embrace this drink to remember it is a medicine and not primarily a stimulant only… . We suggest from 2 to 4 drinks of gin and tonic as being plenty for any one sitting.” By the 1950s, the Gin and Tonic had become one of the identifying marks of the northeastern white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant—basically, the summer adjunct to the Dry Martini.

In popular culture, Ernest Hemingway featured the drink in his 1938 short story “The Denunciation,” set at Chicote’s Bar in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War, and he later offered his own variation on the Gin and Tonic in his novel Islands in the Stream, set in Bimini and Cuba, in which the character Thomas Hudson enjoyed the drink “with a piece of lime peel in the glass and a few drops of Angostura in the drink.”

Additionally, Ian Fleming featured the drink in his 1958 James Bond novel Dr. No, featuring the drink (a double) being made of the juice of “one whole green lime.”

Today, the Gin and Tonic is enjoying a renaissance, particularly in Spain, where craft bartenders are creating variations on the drink using a variety of additional ingredients, ranging from amaro to bitters to aperitif to herbs and botanicals to vermouth and other fortified wines, not to mention the burgeoning range of artisanal and craft gins on the market. Further, the arrival of premium and artisanal brands of tonic water, as well as the implementation of improved delivery systems in bars and restaurants (featuring house-made tonic waters using tonic syrup and charged water), has greatly improved the quality and variety of contemporary offerings.

Recipe: Combine 30 ml gin and 60 ml tonic water in a highball glass, and garnish with a lime wedge.

See also Baker, Charles Henry, Jr.

Anglo Indian [pseud.]. “Tonic.” London Sporting Times, May 14, 1881, 2.

Baker, Charles H., Jr. The Gentleman’s Companion-Being an Exotic Drinking Book or, Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Flask. New York: Crown, 1946.

“Sealkote Races.” Oriental Sporting Magazine, November 16, 1868, 1838.

By: Philip Greene