GINFLUENCED: No G&T Is Complete Without A Good Tonic

I have a confession to make: I'm a gin snob.

I turn my nose up at gin served in a long glass with a slice of lemon or lime, I expect full on grapefruit wedges or cucumber spirals. I'm overly conscious about what gin I'm drinking and I'll always pay the extra bit in the bar or supermarket for a craft bottle. This week I headed to Provence with Fever -Tree and the entire trip made me question myself as a Ginfluencer. I realised I can be pretty lax about my tonic choices, often opting for the cheapest bottle or supermarket brand while filling my pre-session shopping basket. Shame on me. When you think about it, the tonic is 3/4 of your drink. If I'm going to the effort to make sure I have fab tasting gin, a garnish to match, why am I compromising on mixer? Fever-Tree specialises in making a mixers to compliment these fancy gins, bring out their flavour and offer top class ingredients. I visited the lemonthyme fields in Provence and seeing how fresh and naturally grown their ingredients are as well as how wonderful it was meeting the actual family-run farms converted me. I will never buy supermarket-branded tonic for 59c ever again. Today I'm going to focusing specifically on my favourite Fever-Tree tonic, Mediterranean.

The Bottle:

The bottle follows a similar style to that of a premium spirit, which I love.

It's simple, effective, manages to keep an iconic brand image and looks refreshing. What I really like about it is that you can purchase party size bottles or small individual bottles - I deal for when you only want one. https://www.instagram.com/p/BjsK607gOrO/

Ingredients:

• Lemon thyme
• Quinine
• Rosemary

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On the nose:

On the nose you'll get a deeply floral aroma along with a sharp tang of quinine.

Straight:

It has a smooth and delicate texture that carries the flavour of the botanicals in each mixer.

Use With:

You can mix with an array of craft gins - stick to the fresh gins rather than sweet. Gins I'd recommend for this tonic are Dublin City Gin, Dingle Gin, Micil Gin, Slingshot , and particularly, Listoke. https://www.instagram.com/p/BJlLdaGg5nJ/

Signature Serve:

• Dingle Gin
• Large cubes of ice
• A wedge of fresh orange
• sprinkle of juniper berries

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Where To Find It:

You'll find Fever-Tree in most supermarkets, off licences and bars across the country. Cheers to that!