![]() ![]() I also noticed a very slight tartness and tang, and a clean-tasting light fruitiness that matches the elegance of the bottle.įever-Tree is a bit lighter. Q tonic has a somewhat medicinal taste from the cinchona bark, which reminded me of my homemade tonic. This is something I would never try with the mass-produced varieties. I could see drinking either of them over ice. The first thing that got our attention was the smoothness of both Q Tonic and Fever-Tree. I recently sat down with fellow gin lover Nancy Rommelmann for a comparison. While it’s nice to have a tonic with natural, healthy ingredients, what matters more is the taste. Schweppes: carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, citric acid, natural flavors, sodium benzoate, quinine.Fever-Tree: spring water, cane sugar, citric acid, natural flavors, Rwanda/Congo quinine.Q Tonic: purified water, organic agave (for sweetening), Peruvian quinine, Lemon juice extract, natural flavors.Looking for the reason, a comparison of ingredients is a good place to start: If you’ve ever compared really good tonic water to the more common mass-produced brands, you know what a huge difference it can make. For that reason, I never bought any until I ran out of my homemade tonic. I’ve seen them between $2 and $3 per bottle, which the packaging claims is the perfect size for one drink. Two things catch my eye: First of all, the bottles are quite nice – I’d even call the Q Tonic elegant. Over the last few years, however, there has been resurgence of interest in the original quinine water.Īt first, Q Tonic dominated boutique grocery store shelves, but now Portland is starting to have a choice, with the addition of Fever-Tree Tonic Water. Tonic water lost the authentic ingredient that had defined it for centuries. Following the war, the corporations producing tonic water elected to switch to this cheaper, artificial quinine. The group soon discovered a way to produce a synthetic substitute. With battles raging in areas with malaria, the Allies established a mini-Manhattan project, charging scientists with finding another source of quinine. However in the winter of 1942, Japan attacked and took control of Indonesia to secure oil for its war machine. Until World War II, Indonesia supplied almost 95% of the world’s quinine. Holland set up large plantations in Java, their colony in Indonesia. In a coup reminiscent of coffee’s spread, 1862, Charles Ledger smuggled Cinchona seedlings out of Peru and sold them to the Dutch government. Prices skyrocketed – at one point, the cost of the bark powder was its weight in gold – and the bark was overharvested. So, as colonialism and hard-drinking officers created more need, the supply of Peruvian Cinchona bark could not keep up with demand. But Peru prohibited exporting Cinchona seeds. The ground bark was then imported to Europe and quickly prized. They also killed off the Incas, stole their gold, and colonized their land. In her honor, the Spanish renamed the Peruvian tree the “Cinchona” tree. The potion worked and she quickly recovered. In a show of generosity, the Incas instructed her to drink a potion containing the ground bark of the native “Quinquina” tree, which grew on the slopes of the Andes. Her husband begged the local Incas for an antidote. The wife of the Spanish Viceroy in Peru, the Countess of Chinchon, had fallen violently ill with malaria. Tonic water’s story begins two centuries earlier, in 1638. It is the best I’ve found, so I’m just going to add it here. I was going to put some history of tonic water, but when I was researching it, I came across a great essay on the Q Tonic site. The average bartender, whether at home or in a bar, grabs for a bottle of Schweppes, or even worse, squirts the tonic out of a gun, and ends up with an overly sweet drink that has little in common with the original concoction. Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen very often. Just about anyone should be able to take three ingredients and, measuring, come up with a good cocktail. Gin and tonic – what my dad would call “an honest drink.” No fancy juices – direct and to the point. I thought it was time to go back and update this post with a comparison between the two. Now Fever-Tree Tonic, another gourmet version has hit local store shelves. I have already rewritten and updated the recipe for making tonic water from scratch, which you will find here. NOTE: This review has been replaced with a new, larger roundup, which you can read here. ![]() ![]() Reader Survey: Best Coffeehouses in Portland 2017.A Map of our favorite Portland coffeehouses.Interviews: Honest dialog with people in the Portland food industry.Reader Survey: Best of Portland Food 2017.
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