International Gin and Tonic Day
October 19 · Level 2 · #1862 of 2238
A toast to the world's best-known two-ingredient cocktail: gin and tonic. People love it for its crisp taste and a recipe anyone can manage.
How it is celebrated: bars put special twists on the drink on their menus, and friends get together and garnish their glasses with lime, cucumber or a sprig of rosemary.
Tonic water gets its bitter edge from quinine, a compound from cinchona bark once used against malaria. Legend has it that British colonists in India began adding gin to make the medicine easier to swallow.