Gin & Tonic: The Complete Guide for the Perfect Mix

"As far as I remember, this is written by Belgians. You think that the Brits love gin, well the Belgians love gin almost in equal measure. They are bonkers about it. But in the same way that Dave had a nice list of gin brands out there for you to go, ‘oh, I’ve hadn’t heard of that one. That sounds interesting’ this book adds to that in a similar way. It adds the tonic section, which no one really seems to have talked about so far. From all of the surveys that we do in the UK, 65-70 per cent of gin is consumed in a gin and tonic. If you think of all the all other cocktails you can make—Martinis, Negronis, Tom Collins—or even sipping it neat, the fact that almost 70 per cent of people are only ever drinking this in a gin and tonic, it’s a huge part of the equation. “From all of the surveys that we do in the UK, 65-70 per cent of gin is consumed in a gin and tonic.” He discusses some of the ones that are out there, what they taste like, how they can be mixed. He doesn’t go and do specific pairings, i.e. that tonic with this gin. What he does do is a pretty handy guide as to, ‘Okay this tonic suits more citrusy gins, or this tonic suits more herbal or spiced ones.’ He’s doing the tasting notes of the tonic water by themselves but there’s an implied pairing that’s a lot more general. I actually think that rule of thumb is more helpful than saying, ‘use Schweppes with Gordons and use this with that.’ It’s much more, ‘if you like that tonic, then this is the kind of gin that you might opt for.’ And vice versa. Enormous. Fever-Tree reinvented the wheel a couple of years ago. Well, premium-ised it, I suppose, is a better way of saying it, because tonic’s been around for a long, long time. You’re talking late 17th, early 18th century. There have been a lot of tonic brands. But since Fever-Tree have come out with a premium offering, there have been a lot of other people who have said, ‘hang on a minute, there’s a huge gap in the market and how do we get in on that?’ Fentimans, from a British perspective, were also in there early. Get the weekly Five Books newsletter But now you’re looking at dozens and dozens. Last year alone, there were at least ten new launches. These are ranging from huge scale to very, very small batch and artisanal. There’s been a comeback of the original type of tonic—the tonic syrup— which is not carbonated. It’s just brown syrup. You add a shot of that, a shot of gin, and top it up with soda water. You can use it to make brown, colonial-esque gin and tonics. So it’s really cool, there is a lot of innovation going on. I think it’s also interesting–I mean, interesting for someone like me, who’s perhaps a little bit obsessive about it—since the whole ‘what kind of sugar do you have?’ conversation has come up. A lot of brands have been pushing tonic that’s not overly sweet and does not come from artificial sugar sources. There’s a lot of change and a lot of choice out there for what you want to put in your glass. I still think Schweppes is great and a lot of the supermarket home brands are fantastic as well, but they are all fructose syrup. You didn’t have a choice before. Now, you can choose fruit sugars or cane sugars—there’s a lot more versatility."