“The Gin & Tonic has saved more English lives and souls than all the doctors in the Empire,” said Winston Churchill. Apparently. For the life of me, I can’t find a primary source for this proclamation. Instead, it’s endless articles from amateur historians and gin enthusiasts repeating the anecdote, before musing on the drink’s importance to the British Empire.
English lives needed saving because they were busy colonizing modern-day India, Bangladesh and Pakistan under the British Raj, and soldiers were susceptible to malaria. It was a “virulent killer of colonized and colonizer alike,” writes Kal Raustiala for Slate. But in any history of the Gin & Tonic, the focus has been on the colonizers: their “discovery” of cinchona tree bark and its active ingredient, quinine, in Peru as a treatment and preventive for malaria and its spread across Europe, which led the British to ship quinine powder in massive quantities to Indian colonies. There, it would be used to ensure that wilting soldiers could enforce British rule.
“Quinine was so bitter, though, that British officials stationed in India and other tropical posts took to mixing the powder with soda and sugar,” writes Raustiala. This led to the creation of the first commercial quinine tonics. And where there’s a mixer, there’s a cocktail. Coinciding with a rise in the popularity of gin, overseas Brits began mixing tonic with imported British gin to further improve its taste (and get a buzz).
Perhaps such a symbol of British rule would now be seen as an unwelcome vestige of oppression in India. But bartenders are experimenting with this remnant of the colonial past, making the Gin & Tonic more popular than ever. Across India, the drink has held on in colonial-era clubs, and now, it is seeing a resurgence in popularity in modern cocktail bars. “It has been only recently that most consumers have come to know about the origins of the Gin & Tonic, and the fact that it was born in India,” says Yangdup Lama, co-founder of the New Delhi bars Sidecar and Cocktails & Dreams Speakeasy. “So quite a lot of them take pride in that and pick this as their choice of drink.”
Beginning in the late 19th century, Gin & Tonic became a staple of British gymkhana clubs across the British Raj, exclusive clubs built so officers could play sports and drink, and which often explicitly excluded Indians. After Indian independence, the clubs became places for a “new class of monied, upper-caste Indian members, with their Raj-era nostalgia,” write Sneha Mehta and Mallika Chandra for Condé Nast Traveller, and “[t]heir centuries-long history has seen a fascinating tug-of-war between tradition and evolution play out in the food, conventions, and customs.” The menus have typically remained a mixture of classic British cuisine and Anglo-Indian fusion, with Welsh rabbit served next to prawn curry. The Gin & Tonic was a menu mainstay throughout, a strangely romantic reminder of the Raj.
But now, the Gin & Tonic has seen a revival outside of the gymkhana club, and is growing out of its colonial associations. Over the past few years, Indian bartenders have put their own spins on the drink, often made with local gins and infused with spices and produce that are native to India and Southeast Asia. At Sidecar, the Larkin G&T is made with a roasted pineapple honey shrub and mace tincture. Native Cocktail Room in Jaipur uses mango-infused gin with its tonic, while O Pedro in Mumbai serves a version with blue pea flower–infused triple sec and an Indian spice syrup. Americano in Mumbai serves its Gateway Tonic with ginger, cucumber and makrut lime.
Darren Crawford, the beverage director at Americano, says the Gin & Tonic has experienced steady growth in India over the past five years, which is also fueled by the rise in local gin distilleries (including Tamras and Kumaon & I) that use regional Indian botanicals. It helps that these bottlings are also more accessible than heavily taxed imported options.
Though India’s cocktail culture is newer compared to those in Europe and America, the local bar scene continues to innovate. Crawford points to the establishment of the India’s 30 Best Bars award program and the recognition of Indian bars by Asia’s 50 Best Bars as examples of “the country’s rising talent” in the cocktail sphere.
As such, the Gin & Tonic allows both bartenders and drinkers to tap into a longer history even if cocktail culture is still emergent. According to Lama, bartenders in India “resonate with the origins of the Gin & Tonic, and love narrating its story with pride.” But making the drink is also a reclamation, an acknowledgment that India is now in charge of the ghosts of British customs in the country, and not the other way around. India has its own gin, its own flavors and its own cocktail bars. Perhaps a new generation won’t associate it with a colonial past, but with a new, vibrant future.
