Gin and Tonic

The word ‘gin’ has its roots from the Flemish term ‘genever’ (a form of Dutch gin). The drink was known to have been invented by British soldiers while they were stationed in Holland in the 1580s. Birthed during the Dutch War of Independence, the English military men referred to Gin and Tonic as “The Dutch Courage.” Another account trails the cocktail’s roots back to a Dutch doctor named Sylvius de Bouve. De Bouve, during his experiments with medicine, came up with an extremely potent solution, which he named Jenever.

Jenever was known to improve blood circulation in the body and have medicinal effects on other ailments as well. This could have been the genesis of the Gin and Tonic, later brought to England by British soldiers. A crucial element in Gin and Tonic is the tonic water. Unbeknownst to many, tonic water consists of considerable amounts of quinine (an anti-malarial alkaloid that is prepared from the cinchona tree bark).

During the long drawn British Raj in India, there was considerable influx of British officers and their families into the subcontinent. Soon enough, most of them began getting affected by malaria, owing to the region abounding in the deadly mosquitoes. Legend goes, the quinine was so bitter that many soldiers refused to take it and chose to die instead. The growing number of malaria infections started taking the shape of a pandemic and that is when the concoction of gin and tonic presumably took place.

Gin, an already popular alcohol among the English, was swiftly added to tonic water (which was essentially a diluted version of quinine), and served up to hordes of British soldiers affected with malaria. “The Gin and Tonic drink has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire,” former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was known to have said of the drink.

Today, the much-loved cocktail has a plethora of variations, which are equally popular as the original recipe. The tonic water used also has multiple types like Bitter Lemon, Mint, the Regular Indian kind, or even Lavender. The Juniper berries are known to be an essential part of the Gin and Tonic, adding the extra zing to the drink.