Control your Tonic!
By: Warren Bobrow
Published: April 7, 2012

The first time I enjoyed a Gin and Tonic I was but a youngster.  It was around 1976 and I was in the Ivory Coast with my parents on vacation.  We spent just over a month traveling without much air-conditioning around a country in great political upheaval and transition.  The French were still firmly in control of the country, but up in the north, where you didn't travel- there were rumblings of a revolution. 
The president of the country had built a thousand room palace, in the middle of nowhere, ringed by a gigantic moat filled with ravenous crocodiles. 
Do you think he was afraid of something? 
There was a  20 lane highway (to nowhere) that led right to his front door.  I seem to remember this road wide enough to hold several hundred cars, yet none were to be found.  Traveling this road at night was absolutely forbidden.  Not because of the law, but because if you should run someone over, it would be an immediate death sentence in a most unpleasant manner. 
Needless to say we never drove at night even though others did.
The average air temperature in the Ivory Coast hovers around one hundred degrees.  At night it can get a bit cooler, about ninety.  Add to this equation, there is the equally oppressive humidity- again, sitting around one hundred percent.  Air-Conditioning was only for the very wealthy, so to get cool- vast amounts of ice and dirty water ice had to be consumed. 
You drank imported bottled water or faced certain, or even a fatal distress in the stomach department.
Of course I left out the most important part.  There were vast clouds of blood-thirsty mosquitos that would swoop down from the sky and bite man, woman, child and animal in a blood-lust frenzy.  Did I tell you that these mosquitos were infected with malaria?  No, I suppose that I didn't.  Six months prior and six months after visiting the Ivory Coast we took quinine tablets.  Please don't get me wrong. 
This was a beautiful country.  Crocodiles and blood thirsty mosquitos only made it more exciting.  We traveled down to a Club Med that used to be located on the mangrove swamps in Assinie.  My mom was a competitive water-skier at Cypress Gardens in Florida when she was young.  She insisted on going in the water to ski.  Surrounding the boat in the brilliant blue water were things that appeared to be logs.  Upon getting back into the boat, she mentioned them to the guard assigned to protect us.  The helpful guard/guide said they weren't logs, they were crocodiles, don't fall down!  HA!!!
The French, like many of the Colonial inhabitants of the Ivory Coast knew a thing or two about staying hydrated in a land where you walk outside of your home (guarded by men carrying spears topped with poisonous arrowheads) Sounds like fun!  Revolutionaries in the north.  Mad presidents with highways to nowhere.  Moats ringing palaces filled with crocodiles.  Dangerous roads where you never stop for an accident.   What???
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to control the destiny of your Gin cocktails? 
My first Gin and Tonic was enjoyed under the most difficult circumstances in the Ivory Coast.  Drink too many and you might end up in a pond filled with crocodiles or worse being drawn and quartered, just because... 
Fortunately in the USA we don't have such problems.  What we do have is a ready supply of Botanical and London Gins, plus many interesting syrups, bitters, potions and salves.  Maybe not potions or salves, but what we do have here, like in the Ivory Coast is thirst and great weather for enjoying Gin and Tonic Cocktails!
Tomr's Tonic is a lovely product.  Tomr's allows you to create the the Gin and Tonic of your dreams.  And then some.  It is handcrafted in New Jersey- pretty close to where I live in Morristown.  The ingredients are all carefully chosen for flavor. 
Tonic Water as a rule is a sickly sweet concoction with nearly twice the corn sugar syrup of a commercial soda.  There is so much sugar in Tonic Water that you might as well scoop a couple of tablespoons full directly into your Gin, destroying the gentle aromatics immediately.
Tomr's Tonic on the other hand does contain sugar, but they use Cane Sugar- in my eye far superior to corn syrup for flavor.  Woven into the mix is cinchona bark, organic herbs and spices, plus organic citrus.  The kind folks at Tomr's sent me a bottle recently and since I had a powerful thirst for Gin, I thought to try it.
This product is a class act. 
On the back of the handsome flask shaped bottle is their preferred formulation:
1 oz Tomr's Tonic
2 oz Spirit of your choice (In this case I used Martin Miller's London Dry Gin
3 oz Club soda
Stir... Drink... Repeat.
I'm in love with this product!
So you can control your Gin and Tonic.. Absolutely you can.  With Tomr's Tonic you can make the Gin and Tonic of your dreams without the awful sugary sweetness that canned tonic water offers a fine Gin. 
Get some today!
http://www.tomrstonic.com 
 
Cocktail Whisperer's Twisted up Gin and Tomr's Tonic
1 oz Tomr's Tonic
3 oz Rehorst Gin from Wisconsin (with Wisconsin Ginsing!)
1 oz Royal Rose Three Chilies Syrup
1 oz Lucid Absinthe
1 oz Imbue Vermouth (from Oregon.. This stuff ROCKS)
Exactly three drops per glass Bitter End Curry Bitters (The sun NEVER sets on the British or the French Empire)
 
Preparation:
To a clean cocktail shaker add 1/4 with ice
Add Gin, Tomr's Syrup, Lucid Absinthe, and Imbue Vermouth
Shake and strain into a tall rocks glass... Top with Club soda
Finish with exactly three drops of Bitter End Curry Bitters (no more!)
Sip to 100 percent humidity and a lovely plate of Indian spicy curry. 
 
http://www.cocktailwhisperer.com
http://www.wildriverreview.com

Comments:
Helen Morris
April 8, 2012

Wonderful to have non syrupy G&T's. There is a good tonic out of UK too, called Fevertree.  Loved the recollections of Ivory Coast