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Tonic Water, Tax-Free and Thriftily Priced

In today's blog post for Fine Cooking, I talk about good tonic water. Chances are if you read Alcademics you don't need to be told about it.  

But here is something you may not know: If you subsribe to Amazon Prime, the service for which you pay for a year's unlimited shipping, you can get these tonic waters at less than retail price.

Amazon offers Fever-Tree Tonic Water in a 24-pack for $32.46, with free shipping for Amazon Prime. At retail at Bevmo it's $32.94 for 24, plus tax and recycling.

Amazon also has a 24-pack of Q Tonic for $48. I don't see Fentiman's except for part of a gift set. 

Glossy Booze: Mid-August Edition

Glossy Booze is a regular Alcademics feature in which I note the coverage of alcohol in glossy magazines.

Fine Cooking (August/September) has a story on beer cocktails written by Lew Bryson.

Sherman's Travel (summer 2009) lists which Napa wines to buy now.

In Gourmet (August) David Wondrich writes a story about (wait for it, wait for it, wait for it...) punch!

Mutineer (August/September) has a multi-bartender feature shot at Edison in LA, wine date ideas, breakfast drinks, and minimalist cocktails by blogging's own Rick Stutz. 

 Sunset (August) has a story on Canada's Okanagan Valley wine region and another on summery wine cocktails. 

Men's Journal (September) has a story on San Francisco's breweries and distilleries, and another on better cocktail mixers like Fever Tree bitter lemon and Q Tonic.

Details (September) also gets into mixers with a story on craft sodas including Maine Root and Dry Soda.

Food & Wine mentions SF's Rye on the Road, Portland's Beaker & Flask, top California wine for $15 and less, and Red Hook Winery. 

Every Day with Rachael Ray (August) has recipes for a citrusy beer cocktail, a Caipirinha, a Tomate (water, pastis, grenadine), Pineapple Shave Ice, Almond Float, and four other shave ice flavors.

Bon Appetit has a very, very long recipe for a Bloody Mary with 16 ingredients- plus garnish.

In Readymade (August/September) Alex Day makes drinks with cinnamon, honey ginger, and lavender syrups.

Still Creamy?

This site features expiration information for food and more importantly, beverages.

StillTasty.com will tell you how long that Amarula cream liqueur will last once it's opened. Also, lime cordial, Margarita mix, mescal, port, sake schnapps, tonic water, and vermouth.

Homemade tonic: actually easy?

(Photo of Ella's Gin and Tonic by Matt Powers of MattPowersPhotography.com)

Last week I was in Sacramento reporting on the local cocktail scene for Tasting Panel Magazine. We stumbled into Ella, a fine dining restaurant  where the signature cocktail is a gin and (homemade) tonic.

I've tried several versions of homemade tonic water and even made my own, and to be honest none of them were mind-blowing. Schweppe's Indian Tonic is better. But this one at Ella is terrific and fresh, and the secret is... not to make it into a syrup first.

Bartender Chris Dooley made the drink by adding ground cinchona bark powder - probably 1/8 teaspoon of it or less- to an empty glass, then adding the gin (209 Gin in their case), lemon and lime juice, cane sugar syrup, ice, and soda water.

Dooley said they found cinchona bark powder doesn't dissolve well into anything except the gin, which is why they put it in before the other ingredients. That said, you could still see particles of the bark powder at the bottom of the glass. Yet this drink didn't taste as barky as the syrup that I made, even though I ran it through coffee filters a couple of times. It was fresh and bitter and really good.

I haven't tried to replicate the drink at home yet, so please let me know if you've made it work (or not) this way. It would be hilarious to find out in that trying to get the tonic into syrup form people have been overthinking what could be simple homemade tonic water.