Gin and Tonic Day: How G&T helped the British empire thrive in India

The daily dose of quinine was what prevented British soldiers falling to diseases like malaria. (Representational image: British Library via Unsplash)

The world over, G&T has been having a moment for some years now. India itself has seen the rise of artisanal gins, with the drink now being elevated from your granny’s cabinet to occupying a place of pride in your bar. Similarly, tonic water brands like Svami have been ensuring that you no longer have to rely on Schweppes from your local kirana store for your weekend afternoon fix or cool house parties.

Even as gin and tonic’s resurgence continues, it may be worthwhile to remember the storied history of this simple cocktail, one that helped the British rule India for nearly a century.

Who invented gin?

While there is some debate about how we came to receive the gift of juniper – some suggest that its origins can be traced to the Middle Ages – we can say for certain that gin practically became a national drink in the Netherlands in the 17th century.

Not exactly the kind to spend time coming up with names, they simply called it genever or juniper in Dutch. Genever was particularly popular among the soldiers who’d take a swig or three before they went to battle, giving birth to the term Dutch Courage.

Gin travelled to the English shores after British soldiers developed a taste for it fighting alongside their Dutch brothers in the Thirty Years War. Before long, the gin craze caught on in England but not in a manner that would be flattering.

Through the late 17th century and early 18th century, gin earned the reputation of being a poor man’s drink. This foreign drink was also blamed for the general depravity in society and the hearty English ale was held up as an ideal instead.

To be sure, the gin available at the time was, to put it mildly, dodgy. People bootlegged gins in their homes and flavoured them with harmful chemicals and it wasn’t until the English Parliament brought in laws to regulate the manufacturing and consumption of gin that it began to gain some semblance of respect.

Slowly but surely gin climbed up the social ladder and entered the homes of the aristocracy, giving it the final stamp of approval.

William Hogarth's 'Gin Lane'. (Wikimedia Commons)

How was tonic water invented?

Coincidentally, the origins of gin’s most well-known partner can also be traced back to the time when the Dutch were busy drinking it and going to slaughter (or get slaughtered).

In the 17th century, the Spanish discovered that the indigenous people of present-day Peru used the bark from the cinchona tree to cure all kinds of fever. This quickly became a popular cure for malaria all over Europe. They also discovered that the bark would work just as wonderfully to prevent malaria as it did to cure it. The primary ingredient that was working its magic was quinine. As was wont, quinine became yet another weapon in the arsenal of the European expansionist ambitions.

By the 1840s, when the British East India Company was at the peak of its power, some 700 tons of cinchona bark was being used annually to vaccinate soldiers and officers being posted to India.

The daily dose of quinine was what prevented British soldiers falling to tropical diseases as they went about conquering and administering distant parts of the country. Yet there was one problem with quinine: it was extremely bitter.

While everyone acknowledged its need, soldiers would occasionally skip their doses. That is, until some enterprising person decided to have it with a mix of soda water and sugar, thus giving birth to the earliest tonic water.

How did gin and tonic help the British empire thrive in India?

India was the jewel in the crown of the British empire. So much so that Queen Victoria added Empress of India to her title. Her successors, all the way down till George VI, continued to use it.

It was clear that if they had to keep the country, they’d require sound minds to run it and the best administrators were dispatched to our shores. And keeping them healthy was the rudimentary tonic water.

While it is unclear who came up with the idea but safe to say it was a happy tippler who decided that instead of taking this quinine thing as medicine with tonic water, they could make it an afternoon ritual complete with the gin from the ration they received.

And it was thus that the gin and tonic was born.

The imperial cocktail, if you may, didn’t just become a happy drinking ritual but also the thing that helped save hundreds of British lives and helped the empire thrive in India.

Even Winston Churchill remarked, “The gin and tonic drink has saved more Englishmen's lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the empire.”

It would take two World Wars, lives of hundreds of freedom fighters, and endless hours of negotiations before the empire that held India within its tight grip would finally leave our shores.

The era of the empire is behind us, but the age of gin and tonic may well have begun once again.