Gin and Tonic

Fill a highball glass with ice, then add the gin. Top with the tonic water and gently stir. Garnish with lime wheels.

A gin and tonic is a highball cocktail made with gin and tonic water poured over a large amount of ice. The ratio of gin to tonic varies according to taste, strength of the gin, other drink mixers being added, etc., with most recipes calling for a ratio between 1:1 and 1:3. It is usually garnished with a slice or wedge of lime.

The cocktail was created by officers of the Presidency armies, the military force of the East India Company which operated on the Indian subcontinent. On the Indian subcontinent and in other tropical regions, malaria was a persistent problem for Europeans, and in the 18th century, Scottish doctor George Cleghorn studied how quinine, a traditional cure for malaria, could be used to prevent the disease. The quinine was drunk in tonic water but the bitter taste was unpleasant. Presidency armies officers in India in the early 19th century took to adding a mixture of water, sugar, lime and gin to the quinine in order to make the drink more palatable, and thus the gin and tonic cocktail was born. The officers were already given a gin ration as part of their rations, and the sweet concoction made sense. Since it is no longer used as an antimalarial, tonic water today contains much less quinine, is usually sweetened, and is consequently much less bitter.