Results: The Origins of Tonic Water

Quinine was first discovered as a remedy for malaria in the 17th Century. Legend says a Spanish noblewoman, the Countess of Cinchona, sick with the fever, was given a mixture of other plants and the bark from the Andean tree by Jesuit priests and miraculously recovered soon after. The cure was named "cinchona" after her. Quinine is extracted from the bark of the Andean tree and is an alkaloid that tastes extremely bitter. Have you ever taken Quinine?

This was the story told by the Spanish. Today, we know that the Indigenous peoples of Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador showed the tree to the Spanish Jesuits. We cannot say for sure how long the remedy has been known to them before the Europeans claimed their discovery for themselves. What we know for sure is that the Andean tree has saved millions of lives by now and has been established as a cure for malaria as soon as the 1640s in Europe. We think of malaria as a tropical disease home to regions like India, but the fever was widespread in Europe as well, even until the beginning of the 20th Century! Were you aware of the Cinchona Tree and how important it was for medicinal purposes?

King Louis XIV of France used the drug to cure his fevers, and they even distributed it to the public in Italy. England, of all nations, was very skeptical when it came to the new mysterious cure, but at the end of the 17th Century, British people also used quinine. The Andes became the "pharmacy of the world" due to the high demand for quinine from Europe, and therefore, the tree became scarce. Today there are Fever Tree Plantations in Africa, on the border of the Congo and Rwanda. Were you aware of the dangers of Malaria?

This brings us back to the 19th Century: As the Europeans in the colonies were terrified of malaria and quinine became more and more valuable, the British succeeded in the challenging quest to plant the fever tree in India to avoid importing large amounts of the drug. Because quinine is so bitter, the colonists mixed the remedy with some sugar and soda, creating the first tonic water. As Mary Poppins said, "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, in a most delightful way!" Were you aware the original Tonic Water had significant medicinal value?

The first carbonated water was produced by a man called J. J. Schweppe, by dissolving sulfuric acid and chalk in water. Yes, the same Schweppe who founded Schweppes, one of the most popular tonic water brands today. From the 1850s on, quinine was not only used to treat malaria but also to prevent it. By this time, the British in India alone used 700 tons of fever tree bark every year. However, even though British people in India most likely enjoyed a G&T from time to time, the tonic was mixed with anything available, be it gin, whiskey, wine, and really anything to make the bitter quinine more palatable. Have you imbibed a Gin & Tonic?