You know that pleasantly tart flavor in your gin and tonic? That’s the quinine doing its thing. Unfortunately, Condamine had a problem: quinine is very, very bitter. As a point of comparison, quinine is also the main ingredient in tonic water.

Given that Europeans were quickly expanding into mosquito-infested territories like India and Africa, this was big news. Lillet still makes a similar product, Lillet Blanc, but it’s just not the same because it lacks quinine, Kina Lillet’s signature ingredient.Īs told by Anistatia Miller, a cocktail historian and co-author of Shaken Not Stirred: A Celebration of the Martini, Lillet’s story goes something like this: In the 1700’s, a French scientist named Charles Marie de la Condamine discovered that quinine, a compound found in cinchona bark, is an excellent treatment for malaria.

Without it, scores of classic drinks are lost forever. Kina Lillet is a key ingredient in many early 20th-century cocktails, including the Vesper and the Corpse Reviver No.