London The gin and tonic, acclaimed as the world’s first cocktail, is 150 years old. The first commercial G&Ts were served to London society in 1858.

British army officers returning from India led the demand for a spot of hard liquor with a refreshing mixer and ice to have after dinner with cigars. In India they had used gin to disguise the taste of tonic, which was then a medicine made from foul-tasting quinine to fight malaria.

The G&T’s popularity was helped by the first patented and commercial “improved aerated tonic liquid” by Erasmus Bond in 1858, according to Gordon’s, the distiller. This also makes it, arguably, the world’s first commercial cocktail, slightly ahead of the American invention of the gin martini, during the 19th-century West Coast gold rush.

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