Nostalgia and Tonic

Like gin and tonic, myth and history make for a classic cocktail.

Contrary to many accounts, there’s no evidence that the famous drink was actually invented by British officers in India to make their malaria medicine more palatable. That said, it did become popular there, and quinine, an ingredient in tonic water, does help treat malaria.

Similarly, there is no evidence that Winston Churchill ever actually said, “The gin and tonic has saved more Englishmen’s lives, and minds, than all the doctors in the Empire,” a quote that seems to have been invented online in the early 2010s. Indeed, recent research suggests that Churchill didn’t actually like gin that much, although his enthusiasm for both empire and alcohol were very real.

Imperial nostalgia is a potent branding force—even when the brand in question postdates the empire itself. Consider Gordon’s and Bombay Sapphire. Gordon’s is generally considered a budget friendly gin, retailing for around $15 a bottle in the United States. Bombay Sapphire, in turn, is a mid-tier, or self-described premium, gin, a bit pricier at $25 or so. Yet that 10-dollar difference belies a far more profound divergence in how the two brands relate to the past.

Bombay Sapphire was created in 1986 by the British beverage giant International Distillers & Vintners. Its precursor, the Original Bombay Dry Gin, was launched in 1960 by an American entrepreneur. Everything about the branding evokes gin’s association with the British Empire. Bombay and pictures of Queen Victoria speak for themselves. Sapphire, and the associated blue bottle color, refer to the Star of Bombay, an 182-carat sapphire mined in British Ceylon.

Gordon’s, by contrast, was already popular when Queen Victoria came to the throne. First launched by Scottish distiller Alexander Gordon in 1769, it’s the gin that the men building the British Empire were actually drinking. In the 19th century, Gordon’s initially gained purchase through its association with the British navy. By the 1950s, admirers included Ernest Hemingway, James Bond and Queen Elizabeth.

To understand this dichotomy requires help from British historian, critic of empire, and confirmed gin drinker Eric Hobsbawm, who, at age 94, was still welcoming guests for dinner holding his walker with one hand and a gin and tonic with the other.

Hobsbawm coined the term “invented traditions” in a 1983 book he co-edited with Terence Ranger. As their work shows, many traditions that claim to be ancient in origin are often quite recent, and deliberate, creations. These include the Scottish kilt, invented by an English Quaker industrialist in the 18th century, and the British monarch’s annual Christmas broadcast, “instituted in 1932 and immediately adopted as ‘traditional.’”

In subsequent years, historians following in Hobsbawm’s footsteps have delighted in challenging countless other national myths: Most of the Great Wall of China, for example, is basically just a few centuries old, and didn’t become a national symbol until the 19th century. Jordan’s iconic red and white checked keffiyeh was never particularly popular until a British general proposed it as military headgear in the 1920s. And the 13th century Magna Carta only became a timeless symbol of Britain’s democratic spirit in the late 1700s.

Historical myths are particularly important to right-wing nationalists, who consistently imagine their countries as more ancient and more virtuous than they really are. Imperial nostalgia is a potent part of this. Not surprisingly, many in Britain tend to remember their empire as a particularly enlightened one, just as their compatriots in France, Turkey, Russia, and the United States do. At its worst, this false history can drive a pernicious mix of racism and revanchism, which is why historians are so eager to attack it in the first place.

Even on smaller things, their debunking can sting. A book demonstrating the surprisingly recent origins of such classic Italian foods as pizza, tiramisu, and spaghetti carbonara, for example, has generated far more national soul-searching in Italy than critiques of the Magna Carta in Britain.

For my part, I can barely tell the difference between Gordon’s and Bombay Sapphire in a martini, much less in a gin and tonic. But since learning that Bombay Sapphire is younger than I am, I can’t look at it in the same way. To be clear, I don’t think imperial nostalgia should be a motivating factor in beverage selection to begin with—but ersatz imperial nostalgia seems like an even worse one.

Thankfully, the range of gins available today allow consumers to fine tune their relationship with the past. For example, there’s Plymouth. Like Gordon’s, it’s another genuinely historic gin, just cheaper and not quite as old. It’s been produced at the same distillery in Devon since 1793, and the current bottles have revived an old design featuring a picture of the Mayflower in full sail.

At the other end of the spectrum is Old Raj, a brand whose version of imperial nostalgia feels more kitschy than deceptive. Launched in 1972, four years after Britain renounced all military commitments east of the Suez Canal, the bottle features an extravagantly plumed and bearded British general.

Beefeater, in turn, represents a fascinating blend of the historic and faux historic. Introduced in 1876, it uses the nickname and likeness of a yeomen warder, the Tudor-era guards at the Tower of London. In other words, like Bombay Sapphire a century later, the brand sought to capitalize on the patriotic and nostalgic associations gin already held during the heyday of the British Empire. It’s a bit like the American whiskey brands—including Old Overholt (established 1810), Old Grand-Dad (1840), and Old Forester (1870)—that have been “old” since the 19th century.

Then there’s Broker’s Gin. Introduced in 1998, it represents one final level of meta-nostalgia. The label features a British stockbroker in a bowler hat, just the kind of quintessential mid-century Englishman who presumably came home from his job in the City to a bottle of Gordon’s or Beefeater.

Finally, if you want a mixer that is also in on the historical-marketing game, there’s now Fever Tree Premium Indian Tonic Water. Since 2005, the makers of Fever Tree have embraced their product’s long-standing association with malaria treatment, and proudly announce where they source their quinine on every bottle.

When discussing tradition, invented and otherwise, Hobsbawm observes that customary practices only become “tradition” when the historical circumstances surrounding them change: The wigs worn by British lawyers only became traditional when everyone else stopped wearing them. The horse-drawn carriages featured in royal ceremonies only became traditional with the invention of the automobile.

Which is to say, however old the product, it is precisely when you no longer have to worry about dying of malaria that you can best enjoy a traditional gin and tonic.

In contrast to Fever Tree, Schweppes is a truly historic brand. It was founded in the late 18th century and held a royal warrant since the early 19th, though the quinine was only added later. In one 1938 story, Hemingway has a character order “gin and Schweppes quinine tonic water” after watching a man get shot in a Madrid bar. Apparently in war time, the brand of gin wasn’t worth specifying, but Schweppes was.

As it turns out, consumers in the United Kingdom can now order pre-mixed cans of Gordon’s and Schweppes off the internet. It is undoubtedly the most anachronistic—and unappealing—way to purchase the most historically accurate brand of gin and tonic possible.

Indeed, accuracy on its own leaves many people wanting. If nationalists are the worst perpetrators of ahistoric nostalgia, liberal and progressive scholars can fall prey to it as well. In the United States, Trump’s assault on democracy has led some historians to romanticize just how democratic and diverse the country was before he arrived. And some of the most vocal critics of nationalism have gone to the opposite extreme, imagining the era before its arrival in idyllic terms, complete with open borders and freedom of religion for all.

Which brings us back to the question of why people mix myth and history in the first place. For some, myth is the intoxicating spirit that makes history worth drinking at all. For others, myth is all the sugar and bubbles that help the hard facts of history go down more easily. But however you parse the metaphor, everyone seems to agree they taste better together.