Recently I received an email from The Gin Lab asking me to write a review on Ledgers Tonics. I’m always keen to try something new and especially spend a bit more time looking at tonics as that part of the industry is really taking off at the moment. They kindly sent me out the three new tonics, flavoured with cinnamon, liquorice and tangerine to try out.
The Ledgers story is an interesting one and the full story can be found at ledgerstonic.com. It begins in 1862 when Charles Ledger travelled into the forests of Peru in search of quinine from Cinchona Trees. At the time this was the traditional ingredient used by the Incas to heal malaria. He went on to discover a more powerful quinine that still carries his namesake.
The Cinchona Trees were being cut down without being replaced so export was banned with threat of the death penalty. Despite this Ledger collected them and had them sent to London and across Europe, India and Australia.
Nowadays many of the trees growing in India and Java have come from the collected seeds and the variety that he discovered is still though of as the best quinine in the world.
The tonic flavours are very unusual. I began with the licorice. The idea behind this is to stimulate the sense of smell, allowing you to enjoy more of the aroma for your drink. The tonic is well balanced, soft and sweet and having done some research it seems that licorice can actually be rather good for the love life too. Feel free to look that up.
Next up was the tangerine. The aroma of tangerine is strong and it’s a little more subtle on the palette. The lightly flavoured fruit would complement a lot of sweet and citrus gins. I like the tangerine. I found the flavour a little softer than the others but tangerine is a gentle flavour and a more hushed addition than orange or lemon which can sometimes be a little overpowering. This would be very good with delicate gins.
Finally the cinnamon tonic. There’s a nice hit of sweet spice, but still very gentle in the tonic itself The idea behind this is that cinnamon stimulates gastric acids. Apparently it’s very good for you on it’s own and can help relieve stomach cramps and heartburn and there are even some cases of it lowering blood sugar. There’s a lot of power in that spice!
All in all Ledgers are a very unusual range of tonic with a lot of history behind them. I would love to organise an evening trying these in lots of different gins and I can appreciate the extra scope on flavour to gins that they offer. Since Fever Tree notably upped the tonic game there are more contemporary tonics coming out with very inventive and fruity flavours. What I particularly like about the Ledgers tonics is that they are subtle. The hint of flavour is enough to keep a gin and tonic light and fresh, and the options are unusual opening a wider spectrum of flavours to offer gins. They are a very well balanced offering indeed.
The Gin Lab run a mobile gin bar, offer support and customer service to trade (including helping design a G&T menu) and are also able to organise gin and tonic events. Ledgers gin is their newest offering and due for imminent release. For more information you can head to their site here.