How to make your own DIY tonic water.
Tonic water
There are two ways to make tonic water either the infusion method or the decoction. Mercifully, they are both very straightforward and yield excellent results.
Tonic water method one
In many recipes the citrus and botanicals will vary. If there is a particular gin you like you might want to match your tonic with it, enhancing the flavours. Perhaps experiment a little and use some floral flavours too like rose petals or elderflower. But do not replace the cinchoa bark as this is essential*.
Ingredients
1 litre water
500g sugar
2 limes
1 lemon
1 orange
28g Cinchoa bark
28g Citric acid
1-4 sticks of Lemongrass*
2-4 cardamom pods
10 allspice berries
Zest the citrus fruits
Soda water
*need to come back to this and experiment
Equipment needed
Accurate small scales
Large saucepan
Wooden spoon
Funnel
Small sieve
Muslin/cheesecloth
A bottle or two
Method
Zest then juice the citrus fruit.
Put everything in the pan and simmer gently for 20-25 minutes. Stir continuously at first to ensure the sugar has fully dissolved.
Strain through the sieve and the cheese cloth and through the funnel into the bottles then allow to cool. You might want to strain into a jug first as this reduces the risk of shattering or melting your bottles. It will keep in the fridge for about a month.
The resulting syrup can be diluted at around 4:1 with soda water/table water to make fizzy tonic water. As this recipe yields a bit more than one bottle there is a bit left over, this can be frozen and used as ice cubes in gin and soda water. Making a gin and tonic that slowly becomes more tonicy, and therefore more refreshing as it warms.
