Tonic time!

Who doesn't love a good G&T? The combination of botanicals, sweet, tart, and bitter makes for a complex and interesting drink.
Gin and tonic is one of my favorite drinks -- not only because of my love of gin!  It's also just a nice session cocktail that's easy to make and easy to keep ingredients on hand for.
A few years ago, I said (and if we're going to get to know each other, you'll quickly learn how often I say), What would it take to make that myself?  In this case, I said it about tonic.  We've been making our own ever since.  That's exactly what we're doing today.

There are many good tonic recipes out there, like this one and this one.
None of them quite fit the bill for me, so I've developed my own recipe. Here it is, just for you:

Homemade Tonic Concentrate

2 cups water
2 small grapefruit
3 stalks lemongrass
3 tablespoons citric acid
1/4 cup chopped cinchona bark
10 allspice berries
5 cardamom pods, lightly crushed
1/2 teaspoon black peppercorns

Directions:
1. Zest one grapefruit and juice both.  Trim the top third and the root end from the lemongrass stalks, then chop them into 1" pieces.
2. Combine all ingredients in a nonreactive saucepan and simmer for 20 minutes.

3. Allow to cool.  Scoop out solids, pressing on them to squeeze out the liquid, then pour through a fine-mesh strainer into a clear glass container such as a Mason jar.  Refrigerate.
4. Later, carefully pour off the tonic into a different container, leaving behind the sediment that has settled at the bottom of the jar.  

We buy obscure botanicals like cinchona bark from Penn Herb.  Be sure to get chopped, not powdered, cinchona, or you'll be sorry -- it's ten times as much work to filter out at the end.

Most tonic recipes you will come across call for sugar, which this one does not.  I like to be able to control the sweetness of my drinks (read: Anne and I often prefer different levels of sweetness), so I opt to add sugar syrup separately.  For more about how to drink your delicious new tonic, see our next post!