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The Gin & Tonic Goes Global · Into The Barchive

• Nashville Drinks: To the PASS! ⁓ Welcome in Barkavist. When we talk about the gin and tonic, we tend to really talk about it as a British drink, right? Yep. You know, it's tied to empire, to its colonial history, to quinine and malaria and scurvy and a very specific image of like pub culture, right? I'm either ordering my pint or my GNT. And while all that history matters, it's only the beginning of the story. So you're telling me we're going a little different global per se for our gin and tonics? Yes. So in honor of National Gin and Tonic Day, we're going to look at how the gin and tonic escapes its place of origin in Britain and goes global. Okay. So, and not just in terms of like the popularity of the drink where people are drinking it all over the world, just like they drink it in Britain, but in how different cultures interpret the gin and tonic. So it's more than just say, pour a little bit of gin, a little bit of tonic then. Yeah. It's going to take on new forms, new adaptations. And once we move away from the legacy of like the gin and tonic as like medicine and refreshment, and it's going to become more free to adapt to the values of different cultures. how does this episode differ from our highball episode, episode five? Okay. So in episode five, when we talked about highballs, we made the Japanese whiskey highball and I made a gin and tonic. There we focus more on the structure of that template of a drink, spirit, carbonation, dilution and balance. Today we're building on that foundation, but we're looking beyond the mechanics of the template to cultural meaning. So what does refreshment look like in different places? How did different cultures adopt bitterness and sweetness and aroma and even the alcohol itself? All right. So today is not about improving the gin and tonic. Instead it's about how different cultures can radically adapt the drink to the philosophies that make sense in their place of origin. I think you've piqued my interest enough. It's time to start building our cocktails. Let's do it! Our first cocktail is the Jinsonic. It's from Japan and it uses in this cocktail Roku Gin. Roku Gin has ⁓ six different herbs, spices, some teas, some yuzu pill. The cool thing about that is a six-sided bottle as well to go along with the flair. ⁓ For this cocktail... We will take our highball or Collins glass and then. are nice, clear, Drop it on in. And we will build on ice for this. Great thing about this Sonic, the GEN Sonic, is it actually calls each one of the ingredients out in the name. We got GEN, of course, two ounces. Those floral notes are coming through very, very well in that. Two ounces of tonic. Fever tree right here. And that is the last part of the sonic. and then we'll top it off or fill it up the remainder with soda water. So soda and tonic giving the sonic name, gin and sonic. Keeping this one very simple, it only calls for a lime wedge as a garnish. Place your straw. and we have our Gensonic. Cheers. For our second drink, we're going to make the Gintanica from Spain. And this drink came out of the culinary gastronomic revolution taking place in Spain in the early 2000s as those dishes became more important. We're going to start with a nice large balloon shaped glass. So this kind of goes against the conventional wisdom on high balls where you want the tall narrow glass to preserve the carbonation, but there's a reason why. All right. So we're going to start with a gin from Spain, Maillan gin from the Schrieger distillery. ⁓ One of the unique things about this gin, it is one of only two gins in the entire world that has a protected geographical indication. And this is the only gin distillery in that PGI. So there are certain requirements. like champagne has to be made in the Champagne region of France. This style of gin has to be made on Menorca. It has to be distilled on wood fired copper pot stills. And while most gins use a neutral grain spirit base, this one's wine grapes. So they take wine grapes and distill them. and then infuse the juniper and things like that. So we're going to start by adding the gin to the glass. Then I'm going to take a little of my Fever Tree Mediterranean Tonic Water and so I went Mediterranean to accent the Mediterranean notes. It's a little less quinine. I'm just going to pour a little in there to help the gin and the tonic marry a little. Next, I'm going to start adding all my ice. And so in this glass, you want to kind of fill it up to create a nice cold environment because if you add a wimpy amount of ice, it will melt faster and dilute your drink faster. Now I will add the rest of the tonic and these five ounce cans are just a perfect size for a lot of drinks. Now, What makes a Japanese or a Spanish gin tonic a nicer or unique is the garnish game. And so on the garnish, I'm going to add a sprig of rosemary. I'm going to take a peel from an orange like so and express that over the drink. And then I'm to kind of put it in. right by the rosemary. And then the final addition is I'm going to add juniper berries on top of the cocktail. So what you do with a Spanish style gin tonica is you garnish alongside the botanical profile of your gin. So obviously juniper is a good note, the rosemary and the orange kind of remind us of Mediterranean sort of botanicals and so this balloon glass you see as it kind of angles in it concentrates the aroma so it's less about the how can we preserve the carbonation it's more about as you bring your nose to the cocktail getting all these extra aromas ⁓ from the garnishes that accent the botanicals and the gin and we have our Spanish gin tonica. Cheers! Now that we've built the cocktails, let's build the context. All right. Well, before we can get to Japan and Spain, we've got to do a little necessary history. Rewind it. Let's go. OK, so the gin and tonic is the symbol of British refinement, but we've got to understand its origins are practical. So again, I think you mentioned ⁓ kind of into the intro here and we've talked about in the past. Gin and tonics were not made for consumption of booze, it was medicinal for the most part. Yeah, this cocktail was not built in bars. It was built in the field, in mess halls, in colonial outposts where survival mattered more than pleasure. Okay. If it starts with this survival piece, eventually does become pleasure. But what's more about this survival piece? Where does it evolve? So at the center of the story is quinine, the key ingredient of tonic water. so quinine is like an alkaloid chemical compound that's derived from the bark of the cinchona tree. And by the mid 18th century, quinine was one of the few known treatments for malaria, which, of course, presented an existential threat to colonizing armies stationed in tropical climates. particularly for the British in India. Okay. Now we've talked about it before. Quine nine while it's very great. Medicinally, it is also medicinal. It doesn't taste ⁓ too great. Exactly. Quine nine by itself is punishingly better. Okay. And so early quine nine preparations, people were just like taking as medicine, maybe work with mix with little water, a little sugar and the colonial soldiers were just taking it out of obligation, mainly just to avoid getting malaria. The evolution then from this people taking just straight quinine to it being mixed with soda with carbonation. Where does that come from? So by the early 19th century, soda water as it's becoming commercially available, the effervescence helps soften the bitterness of the quinine, it made the dose feel less medicinal. You might add some citrus to add little brightness to it. Sugar makes the drink a little more palatable. And then of course gin, which was already deeply embedded in British drinking culture. You know, all this mixes together to get our gin and tonic. And by the 19th century, the gin craze had passed. Gin was accepted in British culture and particularly among officers in the British army. So adding gin to quinine-laced tonic and soda wasn't really a creative leap at all. It was just a practical one to make the medicine taste better. So this, all of this comes about and it's not about being aesthetic. It's about being palatable. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It's how can we make taking this necessary medicine maybe a little more, not enjoyable, but not painful. Okay. And so the early gin and tonic isn't really designed for balance or nuance. It's how can we deliver this quinine, this medicine most efficiently? I think they came up with a good base that we are now able to elaborate on a little bit more in modern day gin and tonics. But before we go there, anything else history wise. So within the British context, if you think about the gin and tonic in Britain today, it's really fixed. Like if you go to a pub, it's gin tonic, citrus, most oftentimes lime, maybe occasionally lemon, but rarely anything more than that. Gin and tonic is almost more of a habit than a state. And again, that's not a failure of the imagination. It's just the purpose of which the gin and tonic evolved. The gin and tonic did its job. It provided medicine. Later, you know, it refreshed, right? Because not only is it like, okay, this is a palatable way to take medicine, it's morale preserving with the gin, right? It delivered that bitterness and it kind of fit into pub life and colonial culture. But that stability kind of creates an opening as the drink spreads beyond Britain. Cultures without this historical baggage were free to ask new sorts of questions about the gin and tonic. And what are those questions? So one is like, what if bitterness is pleasurable rather than just medicinal? How can we play up the bitterness in a way that it tastes good? What if aroma matters in the drink. What if dilution and carbonation are expressive tools rather than ⁓ just afterthoughts? And that's a perfect segue into gin going global in our glasses. So walk us now from that base to what we have now. So as the British Empire contracted over the 20th century and trade expanded, gin and tonic spread not just through the colonies of the British Empire, but through tourism and diplomacy and mass market spirits distribution, know, Tanqueray, Beefeat, or Bombay, or like pushing out their product. And one of the signature serves is... Gin and tonic. You got it, gin and tonic. And so, as those, as the gin and tonic goes global through hotels, airlines, ⁓ expat communities. It carries the drinks into climates and cultures very different from Britain's. And so in those new contexts, the gin and tonic solved a problem. It's cold, it's diluted, it's refreshing, and it delivered alcohol in a way that you could sip on it slowly in the heat. And it became such a common ordered that it got its own slang as a G and T. Yes. And it became shorthand of a G and T please. Or, you know, of course, ⁓ like some brands like Tankeray tried to really build on it. You have, I'll have a TNT, TNT, a Tankeray and tonic, but the gin and tonic spreads pretty easily. The ingredients are widely available. Gin, tonic water. Yep. Right. It's easy. When you compare it to a stirred drink like the martini, it's lower in proof. It's something you can sit with and enjoy ⁓ on a hot day. I mean, I don't know that I want a five to one gin martini when sitting outside in the sun on a 90 degree day. But a GNT? Absolutely. And then this actually adds a little bit of a structural flexibility to now, correct? And so like The flavor spectrum gives us a lot of different cultures room to play with. know, gins range in flavor from very juniper-ford to ⁓ citrus-ford or floral or herbal or savory. And with the explosion of craft gins, ⁓ some of those have been designed to be with tonic in mind and trying to play off of that. And then they use regional botanicals that reflect their local cuisine. I love the craft gin market because ⁓ there are certain distilleries that we frequent that have a spring release. Then they have a fall release, right? They have these playing on the seasonal botanicals that are going to go well with that time of year. ⁓ That plays only one part into it. The gin itself. We use the Mediterranean tonic. The world of tonic has exploded as well. Different flavors, different styles, correct? Absolutely. Tonic is no longer just Canada Dry and Schweppes anymore, right? It's that tonic waters today have less sugar, more bitterness, and you even have flavor-specific tonics. So, like Fever Tree has their Indian tonic. They're Mediterranean, but they also have more like ⁓ elderflower tonic, a cucumber tonic. And so you've got some like flavored tonics as well to make the the GNT more playful. This has now changed it from the medicinal, the necessary part of a the gin and tonic, like this obligation, if you will, to a it's a choice. Like when I walk up, I can choose a. gin profile that I want. can choose a tonic profile that I want in my cocktail. And it's something that now I want to enjoy as the consumer and play with a different palette. Yeah. And this drink is shifting very much where now it's the quinine. All these things are flavoring agents. Again, it's about drinking for pleasure. It's thoughtfully considering this as a cocktail rather than ⁓ efficient quinine delivery device. Okay, we've gone from the transition of medicinal to the necessary part to pleasure. So let's now talk about the pleasure the cocktails that we made today. Okay, the gin Sonic. Okay. One, Roku gin, beautiful gin, I love using it in cocktails one just because it brings a non traditional floral or herbal stance to a cocktail. Like, especially in this specific one where we're not going full bore on a tonic. We're cutting it with soda water, lengthening out even more, making the gin shine, ⁓ subduing it with the tonic because it's less sweet, right? Even though the Fever Tree isn't as sweet anyway, but that's the perfect one for this style of cocktail, right? Absolutely. I mean, of course you'd want to use for a Jinsonic, which was a template that developed in Japan, a Japanese gin and Roku's great because in addition to the traditional juniper that makes gin gin, they bring in these Japanese flavor profiles with the Sakura blossoms, the Yuzu peels, the Japanese teas. So adding those unique botanical notes. But the Jinsonic as a template, like developed out of historical necessity. So another historical necessity, walk me through this one. Okay. So the problem in Japan is that in the 1990s, their tonic ⁓ was problematic because until that point, Japan had banned quinine. So their tonic was really nothing but sweetened soda water. Ooh. That changes the cocktail completely. Yeah, and when you're pouring essentially sweetened soda water on top of your gin, the drink is too sweet. It masks those delicate botanicals in the gin. And like if you have more than one, it's just sugar bombs and your palate will get fatigued over multiple rounds. So the Gensonic is a solution to a problem. It's cleaner. Yep, it's cleaner. So you mix soda water with the sweetened tonic water that doesn't have the balancing bitterness. So the club soda will help dry out the drink. In fact, some Japanese bartenders attributed it to another cocktail called the Presbyterian. OK, OK. So the Presbyterian is like a scotch and soda or a whiskey ginger, but a mix or a marriage between the two. So you take your scotch and then mix it with half ginger ale, half club soda. And the idea is it makes it less sweet than if you use the ginger ale alone, but a little sweet, a little ginger than just drinking a scotch and soda. So this was the inspiration with the Jinsonic. And their thinking was, If the traditional Japanese gin and tonic with their very sweet tonic water, if that's too sweet, if we just went to a gin and club soda, that'd be a gin. Gin Ricky. And that is perhaps too tart. Okay. What's meat in the middle? Let's Presbyterian them. Yes. Okay. And as you alluded to in your demonstration, the word Sonic is the combination of soda tonic, right? Yep. So it's a perfect compromise you get a cleaner finish a lighter mouth feel ⁓ and really Beyond just using a Japanese gin whatever gin you use the sonic template Let's the gin shine more so it's not fighting with the tonic as much you're You're letting like you want your gin and your tonic to like complement each other But this, you're letting the gin take center stage rather than trying to balance out those two ingredients. Now, traditional specs, the garnish in this one is optional. I like lime in mine. By the time I have a few sips, I feel like I'm missing it. So I've already squeezed my lime wedge. Remember, when you get served a garnish and the garnish is a wedge, ⁓ like in your taco, if you were to get a taco with a wedge of lime on the side or some kind of citrus, it's there as flavoring. It's not just there for looks. And so if you want to add additional citrus, that's what the wedge is for. Squeeze it, drop it. If not, you can just leave it there for looks. But if it was there just for aesthetics, the wheel would have been a better approach. Yeah. Great. Absolutely. And it gives you a little more control over your cocktail. And I mean, I would tell people like, particularly when you're going to places like whether it's a gin and tonic or a margarita and you've got a wedge of lime on your cocktail, take a sip first. Don't like automatically squeeze it in because the bar may have already perfectly balanced the cocktail. And when you squeeze that citrus and you're making it too tart or throwing it out of balance. just be mindful of that. one last thought for the, ⁓ for that, ⁓ gin Sonic, what you got. I think the gin Sonic is an act of restraint by adding the club soda in it's we might think about it's like innovation through subtraction we're pulling out some of the tonic water and adding the club soda more neutral ingredient and the Sonic is again if you want to think about it as a variation of the highball template you could do this with whiskey ⁓ you could also like playing in that same Japanese space do this with sake Right. So over Martin Luther King weekend, we had dinner at Comico. OK. And it was named World's Best Bar for 2025. And so we did the full tasting menu and did the cocktail pairing. So instead of wine pairings, it was cocktail pairings. And with one of the early courses I had, they served a sake-sonic. OK. And so, again, the idea behind the Sonic Template is that you're letting whatever that base spirit or in this case a base like wine shine through Let's jump now to the gin tonic the Spanish gin and tonic. Okay, walk me through it So we've kind of talked about the context of this type of drink emerge in the 2000s with the Revolution gastronomy in Spain ⁓ talking about You know playing with the garnishes and using that to amplify the botanicals in the gin and you don't necessarily have to use a Spanish gin for this So let's say I was gonna do a ⁓ Spanish style gin Tomica, but use Hendrix Yeah, so what type of? Botanical or garnish do you think I'm gonna use with that? I'm gonna say You may go Time I don't know we go line Lime and cucumber cucumber. Yeah. Yeah, because you know in Hendrix you have the cucumber and the rose kind of those Interesting botanicals throw the cucumbers in there as well ⁓ But you're choosing the garnishes Deliberately, it's not just ⁓ let's make it look pretty and take a little of this little of that It's like almost like a Pim's cup here. It's more thoughtful and you're using the the garnish to echo the botanicals. Okay, during, while you were making the cocktail, you talked about the Mahon gin having this ⁓ PGI, protected geographic indicator. But you also mentioned that there was only two protected gins. Yes. What's the other? So the only other PGI gin is from Lithuania. Okay? Okay. So There used to be three. If I remember correctly, back in the day, was Plymouth, Jen was at third. But what happened to them? ⁓ Pernod Ricard design it. So Pernod Ricard, the Spirits conglomerate owns Plymouth and they decide not to go through the renewal process on that. I've heard stories about maybe they didn't want to disclose all the ingredients because when you're a PGI, like for the engines, it's like one distillery like Sheriger and Mahon, like they're the only distillery, but like in Champagne or Cognac, it's like there are multiple wineries, multiple distilleries, and they all have to meet the same requirements. And maybe Plymouth didn't want to disclose everything they were doing and said, ⁓ we'd rather just kind of continue our own thing and we don't need that PGI anymore. Then outside of the two PGIs. Now let's talk about the complexity because a grape based gin. Yeah. It adds a little extra fruitiness. Again, they're using a neutral grape spirit. So most of the grape flavor, it's not like unage brandy plus botanicals. So it's a little higher proof. It's more neutral than that. But I mean, Like with vodka, there's like some textural differences ⁓ that can make a difference depending on what your base is. And so the grape, I think, adds some subtle fruitiness, especially when you start bringing in juniper berries and things like that. The glassware we've already talked about, but the amount of ice, like compared to our like normal highball, that was a crap ton of ice in yours. And you mentioned that it was four. control like ice is not your enemy to a cocktail. It's actually your friend. It slows the dilution down because it keeps the drink cold ⁓ at a steadier temperature, right? Absolutely. You always, if you're going to put ice in the cocktail, you want your glass pretty full with ice. Okay. I know again, we've kind of talked about this before that social media phenomenon of Here, let me take the ice out and show you how little liquids in your drink it's like. Well, A, most cocktails are two ounces of alcohol. You don't need more than that at a time, right? Because it would be too intoxicating too quickly. So you want lots of ice because it slows down dilution. And drinking a drink like this on a hot day, I want the ice to stay ⁓ frozen longer. It's going to keep the drink colder longer. And if I only put in a little bit of ice, it'll melt faster. The drink will get warmer faster. So more ice gives us more control over temperature. The last thing about this gin and tonic, you mentioned like just the garnish game, the perfuminess, correct? So it engages your nose. mean, straw placement is always key when you have a good garnish game. ⁓ but it adds to the experience. The perfuminess as each sip that you take, it enhances the cocktail. Absolutely. So like as I was taking that last step, getting that rosemary in there, again, flavor ⁓ is most of it comes through our sense of smell. And so by adding the strategic garnishes, we're engaging new parts of flavor because our tongues can really only sense like salty, sweet, sour, bitter umami, and some food scientists would argue fat. But this adds new layers of complexity to the drink. And flavor, there's also a vision component here. If the drink looks good, it's going to alter our perception. Correct. Like walking up to a table, if people were to see your cocktail or my cocktail, Yours just looks bigger. It looks bolder. It is. It has this, I don't know, visual appeal that says, hey, look at me. I'm the I'm the cocktail that you want. It's kind of peacocking. Yeah. Well, I mean, but even the Jyn Sonic, even though like more austere, but that sexy ice spear that's totally clear, it's like, is there ice in there? Like, but these strengths look good because of their presentation in their own way. Versus here's your gin and tonic and a red solo cup, right? I think this leads us to the next conversation We're already starting to do it comparing these two cocktails So comparing a Spanish and the Japanese philosophy to the approach of the gin and tonic So the gin Sonic kind of reflects a broader Japanese philosophy of going back to the Japanese whiskey highball is taking like Western spirits like whiskey gin making them more sessionable. The flavor profiles are a little more delicate. And it helps make it more compatible with Japanese food, which it often focuses on a little more delicate flavors. So they're more on the minimalist side. The Spanish are on the maximalist side of the equation, where it's like big garnish, right? big glass, very noticeable. And so, you know, the Japanese, less is more. The Spanish, more is more. I would say that both of these, like technically, it's technical purity here and it is aromatic, like just expressions galore there. Is that a correct assumption? Absolutely. Then despite their differences, both Japanese and Spanish that the cultures treat the gin and tonic with very seriousness, correct? Yeah, there's a lot of intentionality here. This, both the Japan and Spain reject the idea that the gin and tonic is just some order where it's a measure of gin, some cheap tonic water out of the gun, and then served with a bunch of cheap ice over in a pint glass or something. The glassware is intentional. The garnishes are intentional. The method is intentional. I think that brings us home for today's global gin and tonic episode. What you got? So while the gin and tonic began as medicine, it became habit before it quietly became culture. And whether it's from Tokyo's restraint to Barcelona's aroma, the gin and tonic tells us more about how people drink than what we drink. Thank you for joining us on Into the Bar Archive. As always, we would love for you to ⁓ like, subscribe, even leave comments down on this YouTube page or if you're watching any of the shorts. We're on other social medias. We're on Instagram, TikTok. And if you are watching this for the first time and want the audio versions, we've got a couple of the podcasts on Apple and Spotify. That's correct. We're there for both of those. ⁓ Please interact with us. Give us some feedback. ⁓ Let us know how you like to prepare your favorite gin and tonic. What do we have coming up next time on into the bar archive? We're celebrating Amaretto Day with Jeffrey Morgan. Thalers improved Amaretto sour a drink that was rescued from decades of use and abuse and proving that technique can redeem reputation. I love it. It's one of my favorites. I know I'm excited. So from global refreshment to modern revival, we'll see you next time on into the bar hive. Cheers.