You remember, don’t you, my pretties, the time that we blind tasted ten gins in an attempt to crown 2019’s best gin for a G&T? Well, this is the inevitable tonic-centred follow-up.
The market for premium tonic waters has become a lot livelier since Fever Tree first booted it up the arse. The question is, with which of these new wanky tonics should you grace your G&T? Which, in short, is the best tonic for a gin and tonic?
To find out, I (aided as ever by the delectable Amy) blind tasted fourteen of the buggers. FOURTEEN. Imagine, ten years ago, even being able to lay hands on that many tonics! Okay, so it turns out you wouldn’t want to lay hands on some of them, but hey, I guess progress punches both ways. I tasted them blind with Gordon’s — the classic, natch — as well as the frankly outstanding Society’s High Strength Gin (£19, The Wine Society) to see how they fared against a more hoofing spirit. Finally, I tasted them on their own, because I’m a masochist.
Below, my impressions of each — and, at the end, the ranking.
The Tonics: Tasting Notes
Le Tribute Tonic Water
£1.75 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
This one has cardamom aplenty, along with the usual lemony goings on. It is balanced and there’s a bit of bite there. It does taste like tonic but definitely pushing the boundaries with that big dose of cardamom. It’s actually nice to drink on its own. But too sweet for me in a G&T. Get used to this last observation, won’t you?
Main flavour: Cardamom/spice
Bite: 2/5
Sweetness: 4/5
G&T rating: 6/10
Barker & Quin Light at Heart Tonic Water
£33.95 for a case of 24 20cl bottles from Amazon
Quinine dominates here. A classic tonic. Nice and moderately bitter; dry yet also full. Not too sweet and feels like a proper, serious G&T. Extremely goddamn nice. Barker, Quin — I don’t know who you are, and you probably only exist in the imagination of some branding arsehole who didn’t think adequately about how Barker & Quin would be abbreviated (B&Q is surely not a brand adjacency that does you many favours), but I nevertheless raise my hat to you. Your light tonic is excellent.
Main flavour: Quinine
Bite: 4/5
Sweetness: 1/5
G&T rating: 10/10
Thomas Henry Tonic Water
£1.15 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
A pretty classic, down-the-line approach from Mr Henry. There’s a decent amount of quinine dryness here, which I like, but too much sugar. Lemon is the other dominant flavour. Compared to the strongest contenders here, this is on the lemonadey side, but definitely better than many in that dodgy neck of the woods.
Main flavour: Lemon
Bite: 3/5
Sweetness: 3/5
G&T rating: 6/10
Barker & Quin Finest Indian Tonic Water
£33.95 for a case of 24 20cl bottles from Amazon
This is relatively balanced, but quinine is again pushed further back in the mix than I like in favour of lemon. Note to y’all, tonic makers: if I want to add lemon to my drink, I have a super-simple way to do that. The same is not true of quinine. Adjust your mixers accordingly, please. Anyhow, B&Q’s regular variant is close to Fever Tree Regular but a little less savoury/complex and a little less assertive. The fizz is quite soft and frothy compared to most. And — what do you know? — it’s too sweet.
Main flavour: Lemon
Bite: 2/5
Sweetness: 3/5
G&T rating: 5/10
Fever Tree Naturally Light Tonic Water
£0.95 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
Not too sweet! What’s more, it has good character. It’s similar to Barker & Quin Light in being quinine-led and serious. Comparing the two side by side, I think Fever Tree is possibly slightly less dry and quinine-driven. Bloody good though.
Main flavour: Quinine
Bite: 3/5
Sweetness: 1/5
G&T rating: 9/10
Fever Tree Premium Indian Tonic Water
£0.95 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
Balanced. Although it falls into the ‘too sweet’ category (along with the goddamn majority), it’s one of the strongest contenders otherwise, with a decent dose of quinine assertiveness and savoury complexity that supports but doesn’t overwhelm.
Main flavour: Balanced (Lemon/Quinine)
Bite: 3/5
Sweetness: 3/5
G&T rating: 7/10
Distillers Tonic Original
£1.10 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
This one has a lemony initial hit but a brutally bitter aftertaste. There’s decent quinine bite to begin with, but the bite becomes a chew, then a gnaw, then finally a gnash. It leaves residual bitterness lingering in your gob for a long time. All I can say in its favour is that at least it’s not sweet. Tastes like what Amy imagines dandelion juice would, if that’s helpful. The bottle says it’s the “distillers’ choice”; I’m afraid it’s not mine.
Main flavour: Bitterness
Bite: 5/5
Sweetness: 0/5
G&T rating: 1/10
Schweppes 1783 Crisp Tonic Water
£3.69 for 6 150ml cans from Waitrose
I wrote about the new premium Schweppes tonics at some length before, and my verdict there stands: Schweppes 1783 Crisp Tonic is sweetish, softish, but with lemon and bite enough to make its presence felt. A somewhat less compelling take on Fever Tree Regular, with the same problems (too sweet, too sweet — sing along with me, children! — too sweeeeeeet…)
Main flavour: Balanced (lemon/quinine)
Bite: 3/5
Sweetness: 3/5
G&T rating: 6/10
Double Dutch Skinny Tonic Water
£0.95 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
Most of the ‘light’ tonic variants focus in on the quinine elements, but Double Dutch has a distinctive softness: it’s not sweet, which is great, yes, but it ALSO has the quinine dialled back. What you do get is a cloudlike impression: soft, enveloping, ephemeral perfume which dies away incredibly quickly. There’s also some artificial lemon flavour in there. I like the lack of sweetness, but not the lack of punch.
Main flavour: Perfume
Bite: 1/5
Sweetness: 1/5
G&T rating: 4/10
Distillers Tonic Dry
£1.10 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
Well, okay. This one is utterly without sweetness: it sure is dry. There’s some quinine bite there, but the whole thing has an odd sense of being watery: empty. This could work well with some new-wave high-flavour gins, but with both Gordon’s and Society’s High Strength Gin it just tasted like a G&T with too much ice-melt. A shame.
Main flavour: the absence thereof
Bite: 2/5
Sweetness: 0/5
G&T rating: 3/10
Double Dutch Indian Tonic Water
£0.95 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
Oh, this is not very nice, I’m afraid. It’s TOO SWEET and has less bite than your toothless great aunt. There’s a not-at-all-welcome bubblegummy whiff hanging about, which doesn’t help.
Main flavour: confectionery
Bite: 1/5
Sweetness: 4/5
G&T rating: 2/10
Schweppes 1783 Light Tonic Water
£3.69 for 6 150ml cans from Waitrose
Again, you can read more about this tonic in my Schweppes vs Fever Tree post, but the gist is that it’s funky and weird: violet and sherbert and shizz. It’s not actively nasty, but nor does it taste much like I want a tonic to taste.
Main flavour: parma violet and suchlike
Bite: 3/5
Sweetness: 2/5
G&T rating: 3/10
London Essence Co. Classic Tonic
£0.75 for 20cl bottle from The Whisky Exchange
Argh, Jesus, take it away. This is truly horrible. It’s not really like a tonic water at all. There’s lashings of vanilla, which is all very well, but not something I want added to my gin, and the flavour is pitilessly artificial. And in case you were looking for further reasons to sling this fucker as far as you can hurl, it’s got artificial sweeteners in it. Piss off.
Main flavour: despair
Bite: 3/5
Sweetness: 3/5 (but satanic, artificial sweetness)
G&T rating: 0/10
1724 Tonic Water
£1.25 for 20cl bottle at The Whisky Exchange
Inoffensive. 1724 is another tonic that seems slightly worried about being a tonic, and ends up tasting lemonadey and diffident. And it’s far too sweet, even by the standards of most of this lineup. If it weren’t for the sweetness, it’d be fine. Y’know, just fine. But needs more quinine.
Main flavour: lemonade
Bite: 1/5
Sweetness: 5/5
G&T rating: 4/10
The Best Tonic Water: Rankings
So, from best to worst, here’s a summary of how they fared.
- Barker & Quin Light Tonic (10/10)
- Fever Tree Naturally Light Tonic (9/10)
- Fever Tree Regular Tonic (7/10)
- Schweppes 1724 Crisp Tonic (6/10)
- Thomas Henry Tonic (6/10)
- Le Tribute Tonic (6/10)
- Barker & Quin Regular Tonic (5/10)
- Double Dutch Skinny Tonic (4/10)
- 1724 Tonic (4/10)
- Schweppes 1724 Light Tonic (3/10)
- Distillers Dry Tonic (3/10)
- Double Dutch Original Tonic (2/10)
- Distillers Original Tonic (1/10)
- London Essence Tonic (0/10)
So Barker & Quin Light snatched it by a whisker. Good luck finding it in your local supermarket, though. Waitrose shoppers needn’t be disheartened: to be honest, there was very little to choose between B&Q Light and Fever Tree Light; I found it rather tough to pick a winner. But nobody said the life of a booze blogger was easy, did they?
DID THEY?
And what have we learnt along the way? Firstly, I suppose (and forgive me if I should’ve made this more obvious above), that the vast majority of tonics are far too goddamn sweet. I suppose I ought to be grateful that most of them (with the ignoble exception of the revolting London Essence) at least eschew artificial sweeteners.
Second: while Fever Tree may’ve been first to start gobbling from the premium tonic cash trough, it’s no clapped out old sow yet. Most of its would-be challengers are significantly less nice, even while they’re frequently more expensive.
Third: a surprisingly large number of so-called ‘premium’ tonics are not very good. Over half my list scored 5/10 or lower. No supper for them.
Shall we stretch to a fourth? Oh go on. Fourth: tonic has a classic flavour profile you dick about with at your peril. You think a dash of violet or vanilla might zazz up this party? You are almost certainly wrong. The one tonic that didn’t fail too badly on this score was Le Tribute, which whacked in the cardamom without being disgusting. But still, not really what I want to add to my gin.
Anyhow. If I missed any blinding tonics (not literally), please shout at me in the comments or on whatever social network takes your fancy, so long as it’s not sodding Pinterest. Much obliged.
