DAPPLED
Sometime last autumn Kitchen Table publisher Brett Warnock was given a variety pack of Dappled Tonic, by Karen Locke, marketing consultant, writer, and author of High-Proof PDX: A Spirited Guide to Portland's Craft Distilling Scene. (And, in full transparency, co-owner at Dappled.) Not one to generally drink alone, Brett sought out comrades in food who might want to share in the experience of tasting this new craft tonic.
Several weeks later Joy of Cooking (new edition) co-authors John Becker and Megan Scott joined Brett in his apartment, and in short order his office table was filled with a charcuterie board, cheeses, chutneys, fresh & dried fruit, tequila, gin, a bucket of ice, and three flavors of Dappled Tonic: Citrus, Floral, and Aromatic. The consensus was overwhelmingly positive, whether boozy or not.
Duly impressed, Brett wrote to the flavor mastermind behind this delicious tonic, CEO and co-founder Faith Dionne, to gush praise and—knowing nothing about tonic water—ask her a few questions. Her response was so comprehensive and well-written, it turned into this blog post. Thank you, Faith… take it away!
Megan Scott and John Becker (of Joy of Cooking) sampling Dappled Tonic.
A HIGHER STANDARD
My background is a classically trained pastry chef turned serial CPG entrepreneur. I develop things that I wish were a thing but aren’t, or have been lackluster with space for improvement. So really I’m making stuff I already use, but to a higher standard.
My career is defined by this too, usually ingredient, or occasion-driven. So if I have an ingredient as a pastry chef, I think of how it can be best featured: flavor, method, texture, temperature. Also, I always made it a point to eat the whole dessert during R&D, because sometimes you can’t pick up on an imbalance from the first few bites.
On occasion—like making cocktails at home for a small group of friends—I want a tonic water that's ready to use and complete. (I’ve been known to plan G&T’s, but if I have no limes I just have a beer.) Our tonic water makes a two-ingredient beverage that tastes like a $14 cocktail. The fact that it is complete and balanced means I can drink it without booze too, which is more and more important to me.
Playing card describing flavors and suggested food pairings.
SWEET BITTER TART BUBBLES
The key to our tonic is a balance of sweet, bitter, tart, and bubbles. To be a satisfying adult beverage, with booze or not, I want there to be movement and “unfurling” in the mouth. This is where I think a lot of N/A beverages miss, including tonics. If any of those factors are off, the tonic can taste soft, sharp, or heavy.
We use culinary principles in our tonics and we use clean, real ingredients. Schweppes, for example, has commoditized tonic water and is an example of an industrialized product. In the US, you’ll find corn syrup in it which hits differently and feels different than pure cane sugar, while being less satisfying. You want a fair amount of sugar in tonic to give it structure, but it has to be balanced with acid and bitter as well as high quality bubbles, or it lands like a phone book on cement.
Speaking of bitter, quinine (made from the bark of the cinchona plant) is really interesting. It’s super regulated because of its history of sketchy uses as a medicinal for all kinds of unproven things. People have gotten sick from taking too much. It basically changed the world by enabling colonialism, since it does have application as a malaria prophylactic. Once the whites figured it out they took control of the cinchona plantations and the rest is history.
The spread.
PREPARING THE PALATE
Quinine still has good presence, though in aperitivos and of course, tonic water. The bitterness is cleansing, not sticky, and prepares the palate for the next bite. It can be extracted from cinchona bark, but not reliably measured. Commercial producers should be using lab grade pure quinine so we know exactly how much we are dosing people. People have also gotten sick with DIY cinchona-bark tonic syrup.
Different countries have different rules. From what I’ve learned Europe allows the most quinine, and Japan allows the least. The US allows 83 ppm, and the label must clearly state that the product includes quinine. It’s hard to get, and I’m sure that’s part of the reason we don’t have a lot of craft tonic waters. I’ve been seeing “quinine extract,” which isn’t the same. It’s not as cleansing or as bitter. There are also “tonics” that don’t call themselves tonic water, but refer to some other adaptogen or quinine extract.
There are theories about why quinine and tonic water and gin are a thing. I don’t know if they are true. The part I believe is that the bosses told colonial workers to take quinine so they won’t get malaria. It tastes terrible so they added sugar and lime (for nutrition), and booze to make it more fun. It seems like rum would have been the booze based on the tropical locations, but gin makes sense too, I guess. Don’t sleep on rum & tonic, btw… amazing.
[Faith Dionne is a photo stylist, event planner, recipe developer, and former pastry chef. Besides Dappled, she’s also the co-founder of Jaz Spirits.]