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Tonic For What Ails You

by Ruth Tobias | September 22, 2008

Not just gin anymore

Suppose you really savored your daily swig of mouthwash or craved the occasional tall, cool glass of PeptoBismol. Suppose your fondness for said elixir was in fact such that you were inclined, come cocktail hour, to mix it with a jigger of Bombay Sapphire and kick back with your own private highball.

You might even call it a gin and tonic.

After all, at its broadest, tonic is simply a synonym for “medicine,” for “restorative.” Hence its conflation with tonic water, whose key ingredient, quinine — derived from the bark of an evergreen indigenous to South America, though it’s also produced synthetically — has been used for centuries to ameliorate malaria (some New Age healers claim it relieves muscle cramps, too).

Quinine has also, for centuries, been mixed with alcohol, which eases its distinctive bitterness (never mind the bitterness mosquito-borne disease has a way of engendering). Apothecaries infused it in wine; others — namely British soldiers in India — made gin their spoonful of sugar. To this day, when at home, we Americans do as the colonialist forces did (presumably sans muskets), lounging out on decks with our lime-garnished G&Ts, occasionally shaking things up by switching to vodka.

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