How does some tonic water have 33g of sugar per bottle, and yet it tastes like bitter bubbly water?

Question

I’ve always wondered this…. especially when a bottle of other soda has usually around the same amount, but is extremely sweeter.

In: Chemistry

Answer 1

The sugar is to counteract the bitterness of the quinine. Tonic is, essentially, bubbly water with quinine added to it as an easy way to ingest an anti-malarial. The British used to drink tonic water with gin to sweeten the taste and then sugar was added to the tonic too. Meanwhile, the French drank Dubonnet in North Africa.

There are a great many flavourful aperitifs out there to counteract quinine’s bitterness I believe. I couldn’t find the original article I once read about the ones across Europe but…

This handy article from [NPR](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2012/12/17/167488498/elixirs-made-to-fight-malaria-still-shine-on-the-modern-bar?t=1590617720694) sums it up nicely and gives a bit more info about antimalarials too.