Like most good stories, it all started in a bar, the Two One Four bar in London to be precise.
Nick Crispini and fellow gin afficionado, Lawrence Mason, were fed up with the tonics they were using to mix with their beloved gins. The tonics were overpowering the subtle flavours of the gins they were serving to customers.
Most commercial tonics use a quinine solvent extract, Quinine Hydrochloride. The raw ingredient, cinchona bark, is bleached which leaves the characteristic clear mixer that people are used to.
Nick and Lawrence decided to do things differently. They ditched the common approach and went back to basics. They didn’t want to use any chemicals in their mixers, so they developed a way to extract the quinine naturally from the South American cinchona bark. Cinchona is quinine in its unprocessed form and is the reason their tonic water retains a beautiful natural amber hue and a warm, refreshing flavour.
"Bermondsey is definitely a lot more than a tonic that works with gin. Because we only use imported cinchona bark, and experiment with all kinds of natural infusions, the resulting outcomes are actually a range of mixers that work extraordinarily well with all kinds of fine spirits, and even can be had as refresher beverages, all on their own.” Lawrence was absolutely right.
