To go with the best gin you need a tonic water that also deserves that accolade.
Back in 2005 Charles Rolls and Tim Warrillow launched Fever-Tree, a range of mixers made from the best and most authentic, natural and fresh ingredients. Gone are preservatives like sodium benzoate, cheap lemon aromatics and artificial sweeteners; in their place subtle botanical flavours, fruit juices, spring water which produces delicate champagne-style bubbles and cane sugar, plus, for the tonic waters and lemon tonics, high quality quinine.
And it is the bark of the Cinchona Tree which provides not only the quinine but also the name for the mixers – Fever-Tree. (Fever-tree is the Cinchona’s colloquial name.) Legend has it that in 1620 a group of Jesuit priests in Peru discovered that by using the bark and making a tea from it malaria sufferers could be helped, and that the tree takes its name from a countess who was cured of a malaria –type fever after taking it and who introduced it to Europeans. From the second half of the 17th century till the mid-18th century it was the main treatment for malaria, and indeed it was used widely for other ailments. It is still used today in many medications.
Fever-Tree’s Tonic Waters are produced from quinine from trees growing in the East Congo using traditional harvesting methods of the regenerative Cinchona bark, before being blended with spring water, cane sugar and eight botanical flavours including marigold extracts and hand-pressed bitter orange oils.
For their Mediterranean Tonic the company source lemons from Sicily and combines them with Provencal rosemary and lemon thyme plus geranium; whilst for the Ginger Beers and Ginger Ales they use a blend of gingers from the Ivory coast, Nigeria and Cochin.
Great news for weight watchers is that included in the range of award-winning mixers are also several ‘light’ varieties.