Homemade Tonic

Here in Wisconsin, we're finally starting to see lemongrass available at our farmers' markets. This means only one thing in our house--homemade tonic. (As an aside, you can buy fresh lemongrass and freeze it in the appropriate sized batches and pull it out to use in tonic in the off-season.) Store-bought tonic is fine in a pinch, but after tasting the homemade stuff, prepare to be ruined on cheap tonic forever. I've sort of created my own recipe by mixing together the recipes from Imbibe and Jeffrey Morgenthaler. My recipe goes like this:

• 4 cups water
• 3 cups pure cane sugar
• 3 tbsp powdered cinchona bark (this is the quinine; order from a herb store online if you can't find it locally)
• 6 tbsp citric acid (you can get this in the canning section or the bulk section of many grocery stores)
• 2 limes, zested and juiced
• 1 orange, zested and juiced
• 1 lemon, zested and juiced
• 1/4-ish cup of lemongrass stalks, roughly chopped
• 1 tsp allspice berries

Mix the water and sugar together and heat until the sugar dissolves. At this point, you've made some 4:3 simple syrup. Now, add in the rest of the ingredients and heat on low for 25 minutes. The part that I find the most annoying comes next--strain all the junk out. I do this by first using a strainer to get all the big chunks (the zest, lemongrass, etc.). Then, I use a tea strainer (I use a Finium stainless steel strainer, but anything like that would work as long as it is fine mesh) and a Chemex coffeemaker, although really that's sort of overkill--any pitcher would do, to strain out all the bark. It's going to be brown, so no worries about that. After it cools, I add about 2 oz or so of vodka to the syrup so it lasts longer and bottle it. I have been able to find nice bottles at TJ Maxx and Ikea. As an added bonus, you can freeze the syrup and thaw it as you need it. For this, I use plastic cups (like a Solo cup) and then seal them in a baggie. I get about a liter or so of the syrup, but this equals a lot more tonic water when it's mixed with fizzy water. I do about a 3:.75 ratio of fizzy water to syrup for a gin and tonic, but of course, you can do it to taste.

I am not sure how long this lasts before going bad, but I'm pretty cautious and try to use it all within about a month and a half or so. Because it makes so much, the freezing option is a good idea so you can use it for much longer.

Here are some photos of the process:

The ingredients. I had to use packaged lemongrass here.

Simple syrup mixture.

After the rest of the ingredients have been added.

Nearly there!

Filtering. This is a time-consuming process but really important.

Bottled!

Ready to become a gin and tonic.

Homemade tonic never fails to impress people, and if you're like me and a bit of an introvert, bringing a bottle to a party instantly gives you something to talk about. I like to mix up a bottle with fizzy water before a party so it's easier to manage on the fly. The large quantity you get out of this makes it pretty affordable compared to some of the nicer tonics that you can buy, and I think it's super tasty.