Today’s special is... Gin & Tonic!
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An effervescent elixir with a past
:: Bartender Activate ::
Welcome back to The Space Bar's apothecary of liquid cures! Today we’re tracing the tangled history of that classic cocktail combo: gin and tonic.
Now gin may seem like a roguish rapscallion today, but back in the day it was considered honest medicine! In the 1600s, a Dutch brainiac named Dr. Franciscus Sylvius started distilling spirits with juniper berries, creating a potion to calm frazzled nerves and ease all sorts of aches.
Soon this “genever” gin spread across the pond to England, where chronic rainy weather spurred a full-blown gin craze. Before you could say “God save the Queen,” gin joints were popping up on every corner. Talk about gin madness!
But I digress. Back to the tonic part of our program. In the 1800s, British colonials in India found themselves succumbing to malaria at alarming rates. Enter: quinine, a bitter compound derived from cinchona tree bark that could combat the dastardly disease.
Now quinine on its own tasted worse than my rusty drainpipes. But some clever chemist decided to marry it with bubbly water and sugar, creating “tonic water” to make the medicine go down.
Cue that lightbulb moment when some visionary colonist decided to slip a little gin into that tonic water – et voila! A legendary cocktail pairing was born.
The G&T carried the Brits through their colonizing capers, keeping malaria and sanity in check. And can you believe it – thanks to that bright spark, we still get to enjoy this curative cocktail today!
I say we raise a glass to medicinal mixology. Chin chin!
Now, who's up for some gin & tonic pong? We've got just the setup here at The Space Bar!
::Bartender Deactivate::
References:
Wikipedia Martini: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
This week’s Last Call is: GrandTenBar, Boston, MA
Drink Style: DistillOnPremises
Price: AboutRight
Atmosphere: RetroComfy
A great spot for a party of friends. Football, board games, and a variety of cocktails. Considering Boston, it’s amazing they have parking out back.