Has anyone made their own tonic water?

If so, thoughts on it versus something like Fever Tree, and where to get the ingredients such as chicona bark in Chicago (versus mail order).

http://www.imbibemagazine.com/Homemade- ... ter-Recipe

DutchMuse wrote:If so, thoughts on it versus something like Fever Tree, and where to get the ingredients such as chicona bark in Chicago (versus mail order).

http://www.imbibemagazine.com/Homemade- ... ter-Recipe

Never made my own tonic, but I've found cinchona bark in the spice area of larger Mexican groceries in the past.

Wilfred,
Merz Apothecary in Lincoln Square has it.

Homemade Tonic Water Recipe by David Leibovitz, which is a variation of a recipe from Jennifer McLagan's book Bitter.

A link in this article refers to the Potential Dangers of Homemade Tonic Water (or other bitters using cinchona)

Tonic water contains quinine as its active, bittering ingredient. Quinine comes from cinchona tree bark. Homemade tonic waters begin with this tree bark either in chunk or powdered form. The powdered form is particularly hard to strain out of the final beverage, and this could lead to an accidental overdose.

Symptoms of mild cinchonism (which may occur from standard therapeutic doses of quinine) include flushed and sweaty skin, ringing of the ears (tinnitus), blurred vision, impaired hearing, confusion, reversible high-frequency hearing loss, headache, abdominal pain, rashes, drug-induced lichenoid reaction (lichenoid photosensitivity),[1] vertigo, dizziness, dysphoria, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea.

I knew there was an issue related to quinine, because airplane pilots cannot have quinine 24-hours before flight. I never really found a good explanation until today.

From reading the full story, powdered form of cinchona is much harder to filter out than bark.

Regards,