As many of you know, here at Canyon Creek Farms we are always finding new ways to be more self-sufficient. This naturally means that we are constantly learning, daydreaming, and brainstorming. One of the things frequently on our minds is improving the way we eat. For instance, we love cured meats such as pastrami and bacon, but do not wish to consume nitrates and nitrites. What to do? I'll talk about this more in another post, as it is its own large subject. This post is really about one of our latest ideas: making our own tonic water.
For years now, we have been doing our best to avoid products that contain high-fructose corn syrup. The label-readers among you know how difficult this can be; HFCS seems to show up in an incredible variety of places. Our one continuous bugaboo has been tonic water; we love our gin-and-tonics, but try to find tonic water that doesn't have HFCS. (I recently heard of a specialty shop in Seattle that does sell a sugar-sweetened tonic water, however.) So up till now, we've just decided to put up with it. It's not as if we're consuming lots of the stuff; G & Ts are more of a summertime drink for us.
Not long ago, my husband David came home from Sunny Farms (our local country store) with a 6-pack of Hansen's Natural Tonic Water. Imagine our disappointment when we discovered that it contained HFCS! Back to Sunny Farms it went. I began to question whether it might be possible to make our own tonic water. We talked about it a bit, but figured it would be problematic to find a source of quinine.
A month or so ago, I read an interesting article in Edible Seattle about "craft bartenders" who were making their own bitters, many with exotic flavors such as lavender and root beer. The article included one recipe for homemade bitters, and my eye was immediately caught by one ingredient: Cinchona bark, from which quinine is derived. Ha, I thought, it must be fairly easily available. Actually the article did mention two sources in Seattle, but later I found a web site that offered the bark in much larger quantities, which made it much more affordable.
Another Google search brought me to Jeffrey Morgenthaler's blog. Jeff is a Portland, OR bartender, and his terrific blog includes recipes for, among other things, tonic water. After receiving my first package (a full pound) of cinchona bark, I assembled the other ingredients and made my first batch. We haven't actually tried it yet as I am waiting patiently for the tiny cinchona bark particles to settle out first, but we are quite excited about this. I am also going to try different versions, such as a sweetened type and an unsweetened one.
Anyone ever make their own tonic water? What recipe(s) did you use? Please post your comments and questions; since I'm so new to this I'm sure I have a lot yet to learn.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
I managed to source 10 grams of Quinine Sulfate Dihydrate at www.sciencelab.com Most suppliers of chemicals won't deal with individuals, but sciencelab did. I tried my first batch understanding the the permissible limit is 83ppm of "quinine" in tonic water for consumption. I ignored the fact that the quinine sulfate dihydrate also contains one SO4 ion and two H2O molecules per Quinine molecule, so I had far less than 83PPM in my first sample liter. I put 2 limes, 83g of the chemical, sweetener of choice into 1 liter of sparkling spring water. It tasted good but not nearly as tangy/bitter as commercial tonic water. I will definitely be upping the quinine next time to adjust for the weight of the Sulfate Ion and water molecules. According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinine I will need 21% more of my quinine salt to equal pure quinine base in a recipe.
ReplyDelete