Gin Tankage?

[Pete7]

I think we can safely leave the Gordons on the dockside for someone else to drink, or use to clean a carburettor. Meanwhile, how to make a twist or since this is a cruising forum, if you're going to windward in a F4, then a slice of the peel is probably acceptable. Needs to be unwaxed lemons though.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo3g...GreyGooseVodka

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

And then there is the health thing: Gin and Tonic is the world's healthiest drink. The lime keeps you from getting scurvy, the quinine keeps you from getting malaria, and the gin keeps you from getting sober.

What's not to like?

Jim

“The gin and tonic saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” ~ Winston Churchill

They say gin can damage your short-term memory.
If that's the case, just imagine what gin can do.

Education is important, but gin is importanter.

Don’t cry over spilt milk. It could have been gin.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

The next batch of tonic was made yesterday. It is improving each time, so in the interests of elevating the drinking pleasure of cruisers worldwide, I though it worth reporting back .

Feedback on changes made last time:
The coriander seeds were a very good addition (the lemon verbena did not have a noticeable effect).
Using lemon/lime extract instead of freshly grated rind was brilliant. In addition, big quantities of extract can be made when fresh citrus is readily available and its shelf life is at least a year or two.

Two changes this time:
1. Following Dockhead's comment about the excess citric acid in the last batch, I paid more attention to its effect and reduced the quantity, adding small amounts and tasting after each addition. Two flat soupspoons seemed about right (less than half the original quantity).
2. I eliminated making sugar syrup and instead added an extra cup of water when boiling the cinchona, and then simply added a bit over ¾ cup of sugar to the hot mix after being strained. Saves time and fuss and it is also safer having all the water boiled.

This mix requires little effort if you have citrus extract on hand and tastes fantastic! As an added bonus all ingredients can be happily stored unrefrigerated long term on a boat, so the tonic can be made anytime, anywhere.

TONIC SYRUP
= Trial # 5 since I very first started experimenting, the first two batches were not usable for G&Ts. The last batch was made on the 23rd April.

6 cups water
¼ cup cut cinchona bark
3 whole cardamom pods, split open and seeds scraped out
4 whole allspice berries, bashed with a hammer
½ teaspoon coriander seeds
1 heaped teaspoon dried lemongrass (I think it would be even better with lemongrass extract, but I have no access to freshly picked stalks)
½ teaspoon dried lavender flowers
1 teaspoon dried lemon verbena, crushed
2 flat soupspoons citric acid levelled off with a knife (a bit less than ⅛ cup)
¼ teaspoon salt
¾-1 cup sugar (to taste)
¼ cup homemade lemon/lime essence (= finely grated zest of 1 lime and 1 lemon per ¼ cup gin or vodka, soaked 5-7 days then strained)
1 cup gin (to improve the keeping quality)

- Bring the water and cinchona to boil, reduce heat, cover and simmer gently for 30 minutes
- Add cardamon, allspice and coriander seeds, cover and simmer another 1 min
- Turn off heat and leave covered for 5 minutes
- Add lemongrass, lavender & lemon verbena and leave 10-15 minutes (no more, as it will become bitter)
- Strain using a tea strainer (if you are careful, most of it stays in the bottom of the pot)
- Add the citric acid, salt & sugar and stir until dissolved
- Using a coffee filter, funnel and two clean dry 750 ml bottles, filter the liquid twice (speeds up if using two funnels)
- Add half of gin and lemon extract to each bottle (makes almost 1.5 litres)

With the last two batches, a dusting of sediment accumulated after about 2-3 weeks. It is most likely simply what the paper filter did not catch, settling out of the mix (I get the same thing occurring when lemon or ginger extract is made and that uses straight gin). If the liquid is carefully filtered again without incorporating this sediment and the last little murky bit then filtered into a different container (no point wasting it ), then the sediment does not reoccur.

I have been keeping the tonic unrefrigerated until starting to drink it. Two to three months seems to be no problem so far - crystal clear, tastes wonderful. The last batch was made on the 23rd April and there is still a couple of cups left. The third batch was made over 3 months ago and I held half a cup back to check for longevity. No problems so far.

I put the long life down to eliminating the need to stew plant matter in cold water for 3 days, particularly fresh stuff (I shudder to think what is growing in the resulting murky mix, no wonder two weeks refrigerated is the life expectancy then), coupled with ¾ - 1¼ cups of gin being added. As well, the citric acid acts as a slight preservative.

Cheers
SWL

Warning: Make and drink at your own risk - read the earlier posts about possible reactions with the use of quinine.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

I'm necro-posting on this -- maybe zombie posting is a better phrase -- 5 year old thread. God how time flies!

I'm about to make a new batch of this, and just wanted to know if there has been any additional accumulated experience over the last 5 years which would benefit anyone making this.

Paging SWL!

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

Hi Dockhead
The last time I made a batch of tonic was mid 2016 (that was batch #6). The only alteration made to the recipe was to double the amount of lemon extract that was made with half the amount of citrus. Essentially this meant little change other than adding a touch more gin to the mix. The recipe did not seem to need any additional tweaking.

When we moved to northern Europe and the temperature plummeted, my thoughts shifted more towards substituting a few olives for the tonic.
I followed your suggestion and tried The Botanist. . Need I say more .
It is readily available here on the west coast of Scotland, as we are not far from Islay. It was harder to source further north.

Cheers,
SWL

PS Although I have not made tonic for several years, citrus extract is used a lot in cooking and I generally have a bottle on board. Learning to make this ended up being an unexpected bonus with this whole enjoyable experiment .

Here we are again, all these years later. Part of my prep for this summer's cruise is to make up a batch of this. Bumping the thread will expose newer CFers to this CF traditional recipe for tonic.

[Henr1y]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“The gin and tonic saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” ~ Winston Churchill

They say gin can damage your short-term memory.
If that's the case, just imagine what gin can do.

Education is important, but gin is importanter.

Don’t cry over spilt milk. It could have been gin.

Damn, Doctors in the Englishmen Empire must've been pretty bad, or they just had very very good Gin

[Dockhead]

OK, so I've made the lemon/lime infusion. I used 80% vodka instead of gin, something close to what we used to call "PGA" in high school, handy for making high school punch.


I figure the higher alcohol content will do a better job of extracting all the essence from the citrus zest.


I also grated or chopped up the lemongrass, and put it in there too. It all smells really delicious.


It made a lot more than the 1/4 cup (about 55ml) in the recipe. I used two large lemons and three limes. I started with 100ml of vodka and ended up with 200ml to cover all the zest and lemongrass. I'm sure there will be plenty of good uses for this tasty stuff.


Now looking forward to making the tonic syrup. I managed to find the missing ingredients (the ones I couldn't find last time) on Amazon. Lavender flowers and lemon verbena. So this batch will done faithfully.


But I have one big question -- how to sweeten it? Sugar is white death and I really try to avoid it. One can of coke has more than the daily recommended maximum of sugar, so I assume a sugar-sweetened tonic consumed every day or nearly every day, will wreck your diet.


So how to deal with this?


I tried Stevia and it tasted like antifreeze. I tried making the tonic syrup very dry with just a little Stevia and that's basically how I used it last time, and that was maybe ok.


Maybe very little sugar would taste ok without wrecking the diet?


Or what other variants are there? I sometimes drink Coke Zero on passage (and never otherwise) and it tastes ok to me. What is it sweetened with?

[rslifkin]

I'd be inclined to see how much sugar it takes to get an acceptable taste, then determine if that's enough sugar to be worth worrying about or not. Especially if the rest of your diet tends to be low sugar.

[Pete7]

Would honey be out of the question?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Pete7

Would honey be out of the question?

Honey is actually worse than sugar -- it's got more fructose.


However, it's sweeter, so possibly less of it would do the trick. Maybe worth a try. Don't know how the taste would work in tonic.

[Pete7]

We have switched to Rum of late, but don't drink enough of it for the ginger beer to have an effect on waist lines.

Pete

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

OK, so I've made the lemon/lime infusion. I used 80% vodka instead of gin, something close to what we used to call "PGA" in high school, handy for making high school punch.

I figure the higher alcohol content will do a better job of extracting all the essence from the citrus zest.

I also grated or chopped up the lemongrass, and put it in there too. It all smells really delicious.

It made a lot more than the 1/4 cup (about 55ml) in the recipe. I used two large lemons and three limes. I started with 100ml of vodka and ended up with 200ml to cover all the zest and lemongrass. I'm sure there will be plenty of good uses for this tasty stuff.

I found most of the flavour is extracted from finely grated citrus rind after as little time as a week. Strain it out using a coarse sieve then paper coffee filter and you will have a gloriously infused liquid that will easily last a year without significant deterioration in flavour or colour (I am still using some lemon extract from 6 years ago). I think getting rid of the vegetable matter early will probably actually improve keeping quality.

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Now looking forward to making the tonic syrup. I managed to find the missing ingredients (the ones I couldn't find last time) on Amazon. Lavender flowers and lemon verbena. So this batch will done faithfully.

But I have one big question -- how to sweeten it? Sugar is white death and I really try to avoid it. One can of coke has more than the daily recommended maximum of sugar, so I assume a sugar-sweetened tonic consumed every day or nearly every day, will wreck your diet.

So how to deal with this?

I tried Stevia and it tasted like antifreeze. I tried making the tonic syrup very dry with just a little Stevia and that's basically how I used it last time, and that was maybe ok.

Maybe very little sugar would taste ok without wrecking the diet?

Or what other variants are there? I sometimes drink Coke Zero on passage (and never otherwise) and it tastes ok to me. What is it sweetened with?

Coke Zero is sweetened with aspartame and acesulfame potassium. The harmful effects of artificial sweeteners may be debated, but I think there is not much to recommend them other than the reduction in calories, which are minimal for small amount of sugar in homemade tonic (a teaspoon of sugar around 15 calories is more than enough to sweeten a G&T). Insulin levels can apparently rise simply in response anything sweet tasting, so there may be limited benefit from replacing a small amount of sugar with an artificial substitute.

I don’t want to be a wet blanket, but biggest thing to consider is that the harmful effects of the alcohol in a G&T dramatically eclipse the effects of the small amount of sugar we are putting in homemade tonic. Don’t sweat the small stuff .

PS I gave up making tonic, as I didn’t want to be consuming quinine regularly and in general I am enjoying sweetened drinks less and less.

[Seaworthy Lass]

I just did a quick check of the actual amount of sugar in a G&T made using homemade tonic.

The above recipe makes 1.5 litres and approximately 20 ml tonic is used per glass, so this makes 75 G&Ts.
If 3/4 cup of sugar is added that is 36 teaspoons, which means half a teaspoon of sugar per G&T.

Contrast that with other sugary drinks such as ordinary Coke. “One 355 ml can of Coca-Cola contains 39 grams of sugar (10 teaspoons).”

If you make sure your G&T is not taken on an empty stomach, I think the effect of the small amount of sugar homemade tonic contains is likely to be miniscule.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

I just did a quick check of the actual amount of sugar in a G&T made using homemade tonic.

The above recipe makes 1.5 litres and approximately 20 ml tonic is used per glass, so this makes 75 G&Ts.
If 3/4 cup of sugar is added that is 36 teaspoons, which means half a teaspoon of sugar per G&T.

Contrast that with other sugary drinks such as ordinary Coke. “One 355 ml can of Coca-Cola contains 39 grams of sugar (10 teaspoons).”

If you make sure your G&T is not taken on an empty stomach, I think the effect of the small amount of sugar homemade tonic contains is likely to be miniscule.

Thanks; that's just the kind of info I was needing.

I'm still struggling with the measurement units. A teaspoon can be either 4 grams or 7.5 grams. A cup of sugar is 200 grams. So .75 cups is 150 grams. So it's 2 grams per portion -- I guess you're talking about level teaspoons then

The average Yank consumes 17 (!) teaspoons (I guess, 68 grams) of sugar every day. Yikes! The AHA says 38 grams a day is OK.

So 4 grams from tonic a day (two G&T's) would seem to be not too bad.

OK, you convinced me.

Like you, I have drifted away from G&T's somewhat and don't drink them every day any more. In fact I've broken from my father's holy tradition of daily cocktail hour and don't drink any alcohol at all many days. I like Manhattans a lot since I discovered how delicious they are with rye whiskey. Of course, these also have sugar -- red vermouth has 200 grams of sugar per liter. But 20ml (at most) is all you really need per Manhattan, which is 4 grams of sugar. More than your G&T's but still not too crazy.

I'm also drinking Negronis sometimes. These have a good bit of red vermouth so same sugar issue as Manhattans, actually more.

[GordMay]

I tried to throw away a bottle of gin, but it kept showing back up, in my liquor locker.
It turns out, it's 86-proof.

[Seaworthy Lass]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Thanks; that's just the kind of info I was needing.

I'm still struggling with the measurement units. A teaspoon can be either 4 grams or 7.5 grams. A cup of sugar is 200 grams. So .75 cups is 150 grams. So it's 2 grams per portion -- I guess you're talking about level teaspoons then

The average Yank consumes 17 (!) teaspoons (I guess, 68 grams) of sugar every day. Yikes! The AHA says 38 grams a day is OK.

So 4 grams from tonic a day (two G&T's) would seem to be not too bad.

OK, you convinced me.

Like you, I have drifted away from G&T's somewhat and don't drink them every day any more. In fact I've broken from my father's holy tradition of daily cocktail hour and don't drink any alcohol at all many days. I like Manhattans a lot since I discovered how delicious they are with rye whiskey. Of course, these also have sugar -- red vermouth has 200 grams of sugar per liter. But 20ml (at most) is all you really need per Manhattan, which is 4 grams of sugar. More than your G&T's but still not too crazy.

I'm also drinking Negronis sometimes. These have a good bit of red vermouth so same sugar issue as Manhattans, actually more.

Yes, I meant flat teaspoons. Metric and imperial measures do vary a bit eg a metric teaspoon is 5 ml and an imperial one is closer to 6 ml and confusingly a cup is 250 & 240 ml respectively. So a cup would be considered to contain 50 teaspoons in the UK and 40 in the US.

Huge amounts of sugars are often hidden in processed food to increase palatability (often snuck in as corn syrup or fruit juice concentrate). I am finding that sugar is now even being added to cans of produce such as chickpeas and sweet corn, items I could previously easily buy without this included.

One good thing is that if our intake of sweet stuff is minimised, our palates do eventually readjust (that is one other reason to avoid artificially sweetened food, apart from all the new information coming out regarding its effects on our microbiome). I am finding even small quantities of sugar taste ultra sweet now, and usually not in a good way. Even my preferred chocolate has become 80-100% cacao.

On the other hand, I do think though that agonising about small amounts of food considered “unhealthy” is not healthy either. Apart from it often being unnecessary (our bodies handle many substances taken in small quantities or infrequently very differently to larger amounts, particularly those consumed in one hit or regularly or on their own), I don’t think the added anxiety and sense of deprivation are good for our souls .

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Seaworthy Lass

. . . On the other hand, I do think though that agonising about small amounts of food considered “unhealthy” is not healthy either. Apart from it often being unnecessary (our bodies handle many substances taken in small quantities or infrequently very differently to larger amounts, particularly those consumed in one hit or regularly or on their own), I don’t think the added anxiety and sense of deprivation are good for our souls .

Agreed! But the issue here can be the power of HABITS. A small amount of something harmful, taken every day, adds up.

Sugar is really harmful so I avoid sweet stuff which doesn't give me a very good pleasure against harm ratio. A piece of really good Tiramisu, or homemade ice cream for example. But if you have dessert every day, you are really hurting yourself significantly, I think. The key is to not make it a habit.

Avoiding processed food is also a very good life habit in my opinion. Sugar added to chickpeas -- that's from the devil. My habit is to eat healthy simple vegan foods on an every day basis, but once in a while in a restaurant I eat whatever looks good, including meat and dairy if I feel like it, just being careful with the quantity. No "sense of deprivation" whatsoever in this. Problem is I have been working and traveling intensely these days so most of my meals are in restaurants lately. I'm moving onto the boat on Thursday for the rest of the summer and will try to get back into healthier habits.