I have a competition coming up in a few days in which I will be using my tonic water recipe. Whilst doing research for the competition and my presentation i’ve accumulated enough info to write an, at least average, guide to making your own tonic water.

The recipe and methodology is extremely simple and requires only a few basic ingredients plus the magic ingredient – Cinchona bark. Cinchona bark comes (amazingly..) from the Cinchona tree, which is a flowering tropical tree or shrub native to South America. Cinchona is part of the Rubiaceae family which happens to be the same family as the Coffea tree, the leaves of Cinchona and that of coffee plants are quite similar and the plants are comparable in their sizes and growth rate. The particular Cinchona which I use comes from Peru.

Now, the reason that Cinchona is highly essential for the tonic water to work, is that the bark of the tree contains quinine. Quinine, besides being a drug, is the ingredient which gives tonic water its thirst quenching bitterness, without that quinine bite a G&T is a bit lacking. I’m not going to to go on about quinine too much but here’s a brief rundown: Quinine is most famous for it antimalarial properties and is still used today despite the development of other drugs in the treatment and prevention of malaria. Quinine is available on prescription in USA but as a flavour component it is limited by law to 83 parts per million. Quinine glows brightly under UV light – Ever been in a club and noticed your drink glowing?

Now a bit of history about tonic water . In 1638 the wife of a high powered Spanish Viceroy in Peru fell ill with malaria, the Viceroy begged the local Incas to help cure her illness. In a show of generosity the Incas instructed the sickly wife to drink a potion containing the bark of the ‘Quinquina’ tree which grew on the slopes of the Andes. The woman drank the potion and was cured. The Spanish renamed the tree ‘Cinchona’, then they killed all the Incas, stole their gold and colonised their land – eek!
The Gin and Tonic cocktail was thought to be invented in 1825 when British officers in the Indian Army decided to mix their bitter antimalarial tonic with a bit of sugar, lime and of course – gin.

These days nearly all tonic water is made with artificial quinine (Cinchona is the only natural source) due to high demand of tonic during WWII, but we’re changing that, on with the recipe!

Ingredients

2 teaspoons of ground Cinchona Bark
Zest of 1 pink grapefruit
500g sugar
1 litre water
1/2 teaspoon citric acid

Method

Add everything except the sugar to a pan. Bring to the boil then cover and simmer for 20mins, stirring regularly to remove lumps. After 20mins strain the hot liquid through a tea towel into a large container such as an ice cream tub, do it whilst it’s still hot and it strains faster. You should be left with a gunky brown mess all over the tea towel and a brown coloured liquid in the tub. Next add all the sugar to the liquid whilst it’s still hot and stir it in until the syrup becomes translucent.

That’s it. The resulting syrup is a concentrated tonic water, all you need to do is add soda water to it and you have your own homemade tonic water. I usually find that a ratio 1:4 syrup to soda works about right but adjust according to your own tastes. If you find the tonic too sweet or not sweet enough adjust the amount of sugar stirred in at the end.

Problems

At present i’ve not found a more accurate of measuring the quinine levels of the drink (to avoid dangerous levels) other than tasting side by side with common tonic water brands. Maybe I could measure how much it glows under UV light..?

Keeping the syrup in a fridge means it will last for ages but out of the fridge it begins to ferment after a few days.

It still contains quite a large amount of sugar, i’d love to cut this down without the use of sweeteners to make the drink a bit more healthy.

If you’re thinking of distributing or using this recipe, go for it but I would appreciate a reference to the site. If you make changes to the recipe and think they’re good, let me know, i’d love to try it.

One more thing. Buying Cinchona bark is not particularly easy, i’m not going to publish where I get mine from (if you knew, you’d know why) but if you really can’t find it on google, drop me an email.

Oh, one more thing. I’m not responsible in any way if you somehow harm yourself making tonic water. Quinine is dangerous in high quantities and it’s up to you how much you drink of the stuff. Drink tonic water in moderation!

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