Tonic is yucky
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Tonic water was never intended as a cure or preventive for malaria, but malaria is the reason the quinine is in there. Quinine has a bitter taste. To make the stuff palatable when used as an antidote for fevers, legend has it, British colonials in India mixed quinine with gin and lemon or lime. Over time they learned to love the godawful stuff. (You can see this principle at work in a lot of British cuisine.) Tonic water was granted an English patent in 1858, Schweppes brought it to the United States in 1953, and to this day it remains an essential component of Anglo-American mixology. Quinine is also used, along with other herbs, to flavor vermouth.