Fancy a gin and tonic this May? Make sure you snap a picture of your drink, because Fever-Tree will be donating £5 for every photo of a raised glass of gin and tonic posted on Twitter or Instagram tagged with @FeverTreeMixers and #MalariaMustDie. For us, it’s an incredibly quick and easy way to support a fantastic charity (and it gives us an excuse to enjoy a G&T), but for those at risk to the disease it provides vital support. What takes us a few minutes could save lives and hopefully help end malaria forever. There are more details on exactly what you need to do below, but why is Fever-Tree backing malaria in particular, and what has it got to do with tonic water?
Today, tonic water is almost always associated with one thing: gin. A G&T is the quintessential British tipple, conjuring up sun-drenched summer weekends spent outside or cosy winter evenings with a sloe gin and tonic in hand. The two drinks combine to create something truly incredible, tasting better mixed together than they do when served separately.
You might think this iconic combination was dreamt up in a cocktail bar by a trailblazing mixologist, but it was actually stumbled upon accidentally by British soldiers in India during the nineteenth century. They were given water infused with the bark of the cinchona tree, which produced quinine – known to ward off the lethal disease malaria. To make the water palatable soldiers added sugar, then mixed it with their daily ration of gin to create the first ever G&Ts.