So hi, who are you?
I’m Kristin, I’m one of the owners of 18.21 Bitters.
How did you get into making a tonic syrup?
Our first thought was definitely bitters, hence the name.
Then we did some research and realized that the tonic companies that are out there only
make tonic, the shrub companies only make shrubs, the bitter companies only make bitters
and I thought what if we could be this well-rounded kind of cocktail mixer company that was a
one stop shop that gave you everything that you would need and tonic just fell into line
with that.
Missy actually found an old sailor recipe and it was a happy accident actually because
she wanted to follow that recipe but only had about half the ingredients so we started
playing with recipes to make it.
She used half of what she could find and then she improvised.
It wound up turning out what our tonic is now and I think it’s great.
So the principal ingredient in tonic is quinine or from the cinchona, yes, can you tell us
what that is?
Cinchona or quinine is a bark, it’s a very bitter bark, it’s a reddit brown almost
amber color and it’s very bitter.
It used to be used for medicinal reasons and now people enjoy it with tonic.
Ours is like you mentioned earlier a syrup or a concentrate.
The really cool thing about having it in syrup form is that you can kind of make it however
you want.
Some people really love bitter cocktails, I’m one of those people.
Some people prefer it a little sweeter.
So we give you directions on the back, about half an ounce to three ounces of soda water,
kind of opens it up and lets you taste the citrus a little more but I think it’s kind
of like be your own bartender at home and make it however you like it.
Whenever I’m making it with gin, I love a really good botanical gin and I like to
mix it with our blood orange and ginger shrub for a blood orange gin and tonic.
It’s probably my favorite cocktail.
Oh that is so lovely.
Yeah, it’s great.
We really wanted to embrace the bitterness of the quinine so we were like, lots of citrus,
black peppercorn, like let’s make it even more bitter.
You’ve prepared a few things for us to try today.
I have if you want to do some drinking in the morning—yeah, sure—if you want to
try some stuff.
We can do a gin and tonic first.
So we’re going to do two ounces of gin.
We’re just going to do a standard gin and tonic, half ounce of our tonic.
Add a little bit of ice in there.
Top it off with soda water.
I like a lemon, it’s nice and bright, good contrast to the color.
There’s your gin and tonic.
Oh wow.
That is so bitter.
I love it.
[Laughter].
So good.
The next cocktail I wanted to show you guys would be using it as a syrup instead of a
tonic so we’re not going to use any soda water.
For a whiskey sour for me, I prefer a rye whiskey.
Two ounces of our liquor.
Same amount of tonic, half an ounce.
And then we’re going to go the old school way for a whiskey sour and go ahead and use
an egg white.
Half an ounce of fresh lemon juice, and we’re just going to shake with ice until we can’t
hear it anymore.
One of my favorite garnishes is fresh-grated nutmeg because it’s so aromatic and our
tonic has a lot of great spices in it like clove and black peppercorn and nutmeg just
pairs really well with that.
Yeah.
That’s so good.
That’s so fun.
I also love that it’s not sweet.
Tyler asked me to drink more on camera.
No problem.
[Laughter].