The Health-Giving Benefits of a Gin & Tonic - Part 1
“The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds,
than all the doctors in the Empire.”
Over the next few days, we will serve you a delicious and informative history of the gin and tonic and the roles each of the components have played. First in our blog quartet comes a little light history about tonic, the mixer, the bridesmaid to the bride and second fiddle to the dashing leading role of Gin.
Here we talk about tonic, just the tonic and the next instalments cover “Gin as a medicine”, “The Magic of the Gin & Tonic” and “Lemon or Lime? - The answer to one of life’s great unanswered questions!”
Part One - Just the Tonic
When we are born, we have a sweet tooth. This is a useful evolutionary tool that helps keep us alive when we are still young and reliant on our mothers for pretty much everything. Historically, we would have been prepared for life much sooner than we are today which reminds me of the Mother’s Day card I sent that said - “Being a mother is easy; its just the first 40 years that are the most tricky.”
So, a sweet tooth meant we spat out or avoided the bitter flavours of potential poisons and looked out for the sweetness and safety of ripe fruit etc. In my case, this would be the ripeness of a Snicker’s Bar but as we get older, our tastebuds evolve and we learn to like bitter tastes. In my opinion, I think this must be true as you never see a child drinking a negroni (we hope!)
Medicines are also often bitter and people of a certain age will remember being told that:
“Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down
In a most delightful way.”
Talking of delightful ways, this brings me on to the tonic part of the G&T. The bitterness of this most refreshing of mixes comes from quinine within the tonic. Quinine is found in the bark of the Cinchona tree, a plant indigenous to the cloud forests of South America. No one is exactly sure when the discovery was made that the bark of this tree, also known as the Fever Tree, held medicinal qualities. Once discovered, people raved about its magical properties and countries tried to harness its benefit for their own good (e.g. Spain) and prevent other rival nations getting hold of it to help prolong the life of their sailors and military (e.g. England).
There is a wonderful story of the Doña Fransisca Henriques de Ribera (I am just grateful she didn’t have a business card in those days), a beautiful countess and wife of the Spanish Viceroy of Peru. While in Peru, she caught a fever. As it took hold, she was certainly at death’s door. One of her household gave her a dose of this fever-reducing concoction and much to everyone’s relief, her fever broke. She lived to spread the word and dispense ‘Her Miraculous Cure’ on her return to Spain.
Although this story has been passed around as absolute fact, according to Swedish botanist, Carl Linnaeus it wasn’t this lady but the Countess Chincón who was the inspiration for the name of this tree. Linnaeus was a great botanist and was responsible for naming the Cinchona genus. It only takes a short walk around the Enlightenment room at The British Museum to see how much he has contributed to the world’s botanical knowledge. However, he was clearly not a great speller and left out the ‘h’ in Chincona which has caused much consternation ever since!
So, why gin and tonic? Where did this classic combination come from? We will reveal all in our next blog piece.