Australiaโs gin revolution isnโt slowing down. Fruity, spicy, earthy, delicious, โ the diversity of flavour profiles now available from local distillers is something to be proud of. So why are many of us still using the same old tonic water when weโre mixing up a classic Gin & Tonic?
Not all tonics are created equal, and the one you use can have a huge influence on the taste of your G&T.
When Gin Met Tonic
To fully appreciate the need to lift your mixer game, itโs important to look where the humble G&T began, and how our modern gin revival is blazing a more nuanced path.
It all started in India in the 1880s. British officers stationed there found that by mixing their daily Old Tom-style gin rations from the Queen with tonic water, a vital anti-malaria treatment of the time thanks to its high levels of quinine, they could make both a little more palatable.
Weโve more or less been sticking to this classic tonic style ever since.
However, quinine is renowned for having a particularly bitter taste. Itโs a bit like coriander, people either love it or they donโt. Thatโs also why a lot of people think they donโt like gin. But itโs actually the tonic water they canโt handle, and it doesnโt have to be that way.
The Best Tonic Waters For Your G&T
Itโs almost limitless what distillers can include when making gin, so long as juniper is the dominant flavour. Strawberry gum and bush apple in 78 Degrees Sunset Gin from Adelaide Hills Distillery, finger lime and macadamia in Brookieโs Dry Gin from Cape Byron Distillery.
Thereโs so much diversity in modern gins, and the flavours can be quite delicate.
In response to this explosion of new boutique gins โ the spicy, citrusy, fruity, floral gins we love โ thereโs a new breed of premium tonics such as locally brewed CAPI and Strangelove, and the British Fever-Tree, which has an extensive range to suit almost any gin.
Award-winning bartender and Fever-Tree ambassador Trish Brew โ who discovered a love of gin while working at the Gin Palace in Melbourne โ says the time has come for us to treat boutique gins with the respect they deserve. And doing that with tonic is a no-brainer.
โWhy purchase a premium spirit if youโre going to dilute it with an average mixer?โ she says. โItโs ridiculous! But I love that people are starting to get a real grasp of that.โ
Brew admits she wasnโt the biggest fan of gin when she started working at the Gin Palace around nine year ago, having only been exposed to a quite limited number of gins and the basic supermarket mixers. She swiftly changed her mind after discovering Fever-Tree.
โIt was a Mediterranean tonic, and it was delicious. It wasnโt bitter. That really sent me down this rabbit hole of experimentation. Comparing and contrasting the different gins with different tonics to see what worked. It helped that I had about 30 gins to play with!โ
For many gin fans, choosing the right tonic is now as important as the gin itself. Rather than masking delicate flavours like traditional tonics often do, newer varieties enhance them. Brookieโs Dry Gin, for example, is incredible when mixed with the citrusy CAPI tonic. The essential oils of orange, lemon and lime really bring out the botanicals. Strangelove Tonic No 8 also fits it a glove with bitter orange, lemon peel and a dash of juniper. Floral gins like 78 Degrees can be harder to match, but Fever-Tree has a tonic for them too: โAromaticโ.
โDistillers put so much into their craft that you want to do justice to what theyโve created. What I would recommend is to learn a little about the gin youโre buying. Find a couple of key botanicals in there that really drive its flavour profile and then pick a mixer to suit.โ
Fever-Tree has created a handy pairing wheel to help you find the right mixer. Just enter your preferred tastes and they can send you a wheel that matches the flavours perfectly.
If you canโt be bothered with that, a sneaky hack is to go with the colour of the label. Brew says that 9 times out of 10, you can just pick up a bottle of Fever-Tree that has a similar coloured label to your favourite gin, put them together and theyโre going to be delicious.
Got an idea of what tonic water to get? No check out the 13 best Australian gins for your liquor cabinet.
