Tonic Water

[Philthy79]

Or perhaps that's just tonic water blasphemy.

Meh.. i wouldn't say so.. as you mentioned theres the 'mysterious flavourings'..and as long it has Quinine.

 

[manticle]

Any other requests for experiments?

Yes.

Materials: 750mL Hendricks, Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray
750mL Kaiser Soze Homemade Tonic Water

Method: Acquire manticle's postal details, preferably by PM. Post all materials to specified address.
Manticle will make tinctures of material ingredients and test using a special genetic spectropalatometer.

Results: Happy manticle

 

[benno1973]

I only have 1L bottles of Tanq - what to do?

 

[manticle]

The experimental parameters can be flexible when needed.

 

[Thirsty Boy]

i want the cinchona and to try for "real" tonic.

But if we are talking about substitute bittering agents to use instead of tonic?? Then well - i think that on a home brewing forum we could think of one, really obvious bittering substance that we could try....

I might use that recipe and sub in some iso extract for cinchona - Hop Tonic!!

my idea... if any other clever ******* gets rich on it, they owe me royalties and a lifetime supply of Gin and Tonics OK.

 

[benno1973]

I managed to do a bit of experimenting yesterday...

Firstly, CM2, I tried just boiling some of the bark in water and tasting that. I did a reduced size boil, still for 20 minutes and then strained it. The smell was quite herbal and floral, so obviously that floral component I got from the last time I made it came from the bark rather than the allspice berries. It's not a smell that I associate with commercial tonic, but still very nice. And the taste? Like arse. It's mouth curlingly bitter - one of those flavours that you just want to keep spitting into the sink. There's no way you'd want to drink this without adding truckloads of sugar, and if you're doing that, you may as well add all the other ingredients too.

Secondly, while I had a simple cinchona/water extract, I thought I'd play around with the tincture and see if I could determine the strength of the cinchona in that, to see if it's viable for use in making tonic water. I took a small sample of the boiled extract in one glass, and 20ml of water in another glass. To the 20ml of water I added the cinchona tincture 1ml at a time until the colour matched. At 6ml of tincture, the colour was around the same, however the taste was far less bitter. As well as that, the smell was completely different - it smelled like a bitter rose water rather than the herbal notes of the boiled extract. Even after boiling the tincture/water mix (to drive off some of the ethanol), the smell was the same - definitely not as good.

So at the end of the day the tincture isn't viable. It'd take far too much tincture, cost too much and be a poor substitute for the real thing.

Back to playing around with recipes today. I think I can cut back on the amount of cinchona bark used, as the flavour seems to overpower all the other ingredients in the mix. I might sub in some lemon pith to keep the bitterness (something like a bitter lemon drink) and reduce the cinchona down to 15g.

TB - was it you who was going to the US this year?

 

[benno1973]

I might use that recipe and sub in some iso extract for cinchona - Hop Tonic!!

Could you use hop flowers/pellets? I gather extraction of the acids is pH influenced, but is there more to it than that?

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Could you use hop flowers/pellets? I gather extraction of the acids is pH influenced, but is there more to it than that?

yeah, I'm going to have a crack at it tomorrow and I'll use some pellets - i was thinking about a rough and ready type experiment to see if "hop" bitterness would even come close to substituting.

I'll use say 25g of millenium pellets in the same recipe as you, then just trim it up with extract to get the bitterness high enough if its too low - if it needs a lot of extract, next time I'll use more pellets.

Still - 25g of 13.5%AA hops gives a calculated bitterness of 1200IBUs to 1000ml of liquid - so from a 4:1 mix of syrup to soda that makes the "tonic water" have a calculated bitterness of 300ibu..... now we all know it wont be that bitter, but I reckon it will be bitter enough without too much extract. only one way to find out.

going to the US - have someone official looking into whether I'll be able to bring back cinchona bark or not.

 

[benno1973]

Before I saw your reply, I gave it a go myself. Unfortunately too little hop bitterness on that run, but I only used `10g of Cascade at 7.8%. Too sweet with not enough bitterness. Next time I'll up the hops and reduce the sugar (I added 3 cups last time). Still very nice and the hop character comes through.

 

[3GumsBrewing]

Well this little thread has progressed alot since I last visited! Fantastic stuff guys.

I went the cheats route and bought the soadastream tonic from BigW $3.50 on sale.
It said it would make 12L, so I did a bit of experimentation and found it was quite palatable at 11.25L.

Home made(sort of) Tonic water. Gin or Vodka. Great stuff

 

[Philthy79]

I ordered my Cinchona this morning, looking forward to trying it out when it arrives. Thanks everyone for all your help.

:icon_cheers:

 

[brettprevans]

Well this little thread has progressed alot since I last visited! Fantastic stuff guys.

I went the cheats route and bought the soadastream tonic from BigW $3.50 on sale.
It said it would make 12L, so I did a bit of experimentation and found it was quite palatable at 11.25L.

Home made(sort of) Tonic water. Gin or Vodka. Great stuff

given i drink shite laods of tonic, perhaps this is better way to go. I cant afford a keg of tonic made from Cinchona

when you say it was pallatable, do you mean it was getting too weak in flavour past that point, or it just started to taste good at that volume?

 

[benno1973]

I am about to order some Cinchona bark from Newton's again. Does anyone want any? I am in Perth so happy to have people come pick it up, or also happy to post for the cost of postage. Price is around $5 for 25g, which would make around 4-5L of tonic water. Not sure how much they can spare for me, but if anyone wants any, let me know by Wednesday (when I place my order) and I'll let you know how I go. Happy to order in 25g increments.

 

[evildrakey]

I am about to order some Cinchona bark from Newton's again. Does anyone want any? I am in Perth so happy to have people come pick it up, or also happy to post for the cost of postage. Price is around $5 for 25g, which would make around 4-5L of tonic water. Not sure how much they can spare for me, but if anyone wants any, let me know by Wednesday (when I place my order) and I'll let you know how I go. Happy to order in 25g increments.

Newtons? Do they sell other herbal oddities other than Cinchona?

 

[benno1973]

Newtons? Do they sell other herbal oddities other than Cinchona?

Yep, they have loads of herbal stuff. Check out their website... http://www.newtonspharmacy.com.au/

 

[ploto]

Yes.

Materials: 750mL Hendricks, Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray
750mL Kaiser Soze Homemade Tonic Water

Method: Acquire manticle's postal details, preferably by PM. Post all materials to specified address.
Manticle will make tinctures of material ingredients and test using a special genetic spectropalatometer.

Results: Happy manticle

Sorry mate, they were fresh out of Tanqueray. Found something else in a green bottle though.



I'd just like to point out that the Sapphire & Hendricks are the real things, none of that watered down for the colonies muck round here!

So I'd better have a twirl at making a tonic worthy of this little collection. I will try to make a trip out to Newton's and see if they can spare me 25g of the bark. I have lemon grass growing out the back and the recipes on the net look pretty straight forward, and sound oh-so delicious.

Bloody hot day in Sydney today, might have to crack that blue bottle shortly...

 

[benno1973]

Just a heads up on this... I ordered 500g of the bark from Newtons this morning for a few people around Perth. They seemed happy to spare it and sounding willing to spare more if required, so if you need some, try giving them a call. Their email response times suck sometimes, so calling is probably the best option. As mentioned, $18.60/100g.

I made some more on the weekend, with more lime, no lemon, less orange and less sugar (2.5 cups to 1L). Tasted a little dry but still delicious. Then I added some Tanq and it was awesome - the gin adds it's own sweetness, so that was exactly what I was looking for.

 

[Philthy79]

I made a batch on the weekend as well..

I only added the zest and juice of a lime; no lemon or orande and added about 5 crushed juniper berries and only 3/4 of the sugar. I did however simmer for 30 or so minutes and it reduced quite a bit... so I added an extra 300 ml of water to bring my total tonic syrup up to 1 litre.

It turned out pretty good, not as much citrus overtones; SWMBO had a sip and said "it's more tonic-ey"

 

[benno1973]

Nice one!

Hmmm... juniper berries hey? I have some there... might try them.

Have also been toying with adding some cardomon pods.

 

[Philthy79]

Yeah - its going to sound stupid but it made it more dry.

Cardomon pods! Brilliant! That'll be going in the next batch.