MMMMM----- Recipe via Meal-Master (tm) v8.06

Title: Homemade Tonic Water
Categories: Beverages, Herbs, Citrus
Yield: 2 Cups

1/8 c Powdered chinchona bark
Zest & juice of one orange
Zest & juice of one lemon
Zest & juice of one lime
1/2 ts Allspice berries
1/2 ts Cardamom pods
2 c Water
pn Salt
1 1/2 c Agave syrup
Seltzer water

Put the water in a pot on high heat. Add all of fruit and
herbs.

When it comes to a boil, reduce to a simmer, and let it cook
for about 20 minutes.

Let it cool. Strain it through a paper coffee filter. (This
takes a long time, but if you don't use the paper filter, a
lot of the chinchona powder will stay in, and you don't want
to get a mouthful of it; it's incredibly bitter.)

Add water to bring the volume back up to two cups.

You've now got the basic concentrate for tonic water. You
can either mix the agave in now, or you can do it when you
make a glass of tonic. It's less work to just add the syrup
now, but the concentrate will keep longer if you don't. I
don't mix them.

To make the tonic, mix together two tablespoons of
concentrate (more if you like it extra bitter), and about 1
1/2 tablespoons of agave syrup. Then add one cup of seltzer
water.

You can use a basic sugar syrup instead of the agave; the
standard bar mix simple syrup substitutes with roughly the
same quantity. But I think that the agave is better. Agave
has a slighly different mouthfeel than cane sugar, and I
think that it sweetens and smooths out the tonic without
cutting too much of the bitterness. Cane sugar to me either
doesn't taste sweet enough, or kills the edge of the tonic.

To make a killer rum&tonic, take a nice light rum or cachaca
(Cachaca is a brazilian liquor made from sugar cane juice,
rather than from molasses; it tastes like a mild rum with a
bit of grassiness), and mix it, 1 part rum to 3 parts tonic,
and serve over ice.

The one problem with this recipe is that Chinchona bark is
kind of hard to find. The most common source of it is flaky
herbal medicine stores. But some of the really large online
spice shops have it. I bought a bunch from a place called
"Tenzing Momo". They definitely qualify as "flaky herbal
medicine store", but they also carry a really good selection
of cooking herbs and spices. Chinchona is sold by the ounce;
one ounce is about 1/4 cup.

Posted by: Mark C. Chu-Carroll

From: http://scienceblogs.com

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