According to Winston Churchill, the gin and tonic “has saved more Englishmen’s lives and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire.” These days, of course, a case could be made as to whether or not those Englishmen’s lives, as they wreaked havoc over a quarter of the world while ruling their Empire, were actually worth saving. But that is a moral debate for another day. Meanwhile, it was the quinine in the tonic that was responsible for any lives saved. Seventeenth century Peruvians discovered that the bark of the cinchona tree (which became known as the fever tree) could…
The Gimlet has a backstory along the lines of the Gin and Tonic. It was created as a way for the navy to incorporate lime juice into its diet to avoid scurvy. These days scurvy may be almost unheard of, but between 1500-1800 roughly two million sailors died of what was a very painful death. In the 1790’s it was discovered that lemons were responsible for holding scurvy at bay, prompting all sailors to be issued a daily dose of the citrus to be consumed in rum. In the 19th century, lemons were switched to limes because they were more…
