I think it’s important that you can measure out your life not in coffee spoons, as J. Alfred Prufrock would have it, but in alcoholic drinks. I don’t mean purely in unit terms, you understand, but in choice of liquor. There’s a definite pleasure to be had in charting your maturing tastes from teenage vices, such as sweet cider, to a fine burgundy. The journey is particularly acute when it comes to spirits. As a child, it seemed inconceivable to me that anyone would drink them for pleasure. I remember trying to take a sip of my father’s Scotch and being beaten back by the fumes long before I got anywhere near. I can’t pretend that developing a taste for it decades later didn’t feel like a rite of passage.
Vodka is the out and out success story of the spirit world these days (especially among 18 to 24-year-olds, who make up 40 per cent of the country’s vodka drinkers), but traditionally, of course, we have been a nation of gin lovers, and not always in a good way. In the 18th century, there were said to be 17,000 gin houses for London’s 600,000 residents. Not that everyone was kicking back on their verandahs enjoying the fine botanicals in their G&T. Only the upper classes could afford imported Dutch gin. The gin of the streets was a cheap, low-grade hooch that had to be masked with sugar and fruit to make it palatable – a concept today’s teenagers may not be unfamiliar with.
Sales of gin have been pretty stable recently, at about a quarter of those of vodka, but it’s not me keeping them afloat. I long since jumped ship for want of something decent to mix it with. Just try your regular tonic water or bitter lemon on its own and you’ll see what I mean. Note how it fizzes on your tongue for a few seconds before a bitterly cloying finish. Is that something you’d want to mix with your super-premium gin?
Now, though, there is something to tempt me back. Fever-Tree has spent the past couple of years rebuilding mixers as they should be – to show different spirits at their best. Their tonic water so impressed Ferran Adrià that he put a “Sopa de Tonica” – a sorbet into which he dropped orange peel and rose petals – on his menu at El Bulli.
Charles Rolls had been frustrated with the overpowering nature of tonics when in charge of Plymouth Gin, so, when he met Tim Warrillow, they set about tackling the mixer market. “We wanted to get gin and tonic back to tasting the way it used to,” says Rolls. That meant going back to basics, and strictly no saccharine or preservatives. “We were seeking something that wouldn’t overpower, but nonetheless was complex enough to make an interesting drink on its own.”
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Teams of plant hunters were dispatched to source the right essential oils – there are eight in Fever-Tree’s tonic water, from Sicilian lemon, lime and bitter orange to coriander and marigold – and they settled down to months of development. The result is a tonic with plenty of body that starts with a citrus tang before moving into flowery, vegetable notes and finishes cleanly on a bitter quinine kick. It’s a revelation. “When we started, we had no idea if people would care enough about their mixers to pay a premium,” says Rolls, but they have, in their droves. Sales have gone from £500,000 to £2.5 million, and Rolls and Warrillow have now added Sicilian bitter lemon, lemonade, ginger ale (containing three distinct ginger oils), a light tonic water and soda water to the range. “At the very least, we’ve given people the choice,” says Rolls. I’ll drink to that.
Fever-Tree mixers cost £2.99 for 4 x 200ml bottles from Waitrose and Oddbins (www.fever-tree.com)