about Fever-Tree
Just think of the fabulous spirits on the market today. Subtle tastes crafted and blended over generations. Yet until now the only option has been to drown these spirits with poor quality mixers.
Fever-Tree was launched to change that, an independently owned company dedicated to putting quality back into mixers.
how it got started
In 2000 whilst running Plymouth Gin, we held a ‘tonic tasting' in New York to try to find the best tonic water on the US market to mix with. I knew the care and attention taken by the head distiller at Plymouth to make such a fine spirit. I also knew I could demonstrate the celebrated differences between the great gins like Plymouth, Tanqueray, Beefeater, Sapphire, Millers & Hendricks. But when served with tonic, the strong artificial smells and tastes of the tonic made it virtually impossible to tell one gin from another.
When we started to look into the composition of the mixers, we were astonished. All the UK tonics contained artificial sweeteners such as saccharin (You know who might more truthfully say Shhh!, we use saccharin - check out the very small print on the package). The New York tasting confirmed that all the American mixers used high fructose corn syrup, a no-no in quality drinks. The use of cheap lemon aromatics (like decanal) was universal, and without exception all were preserved with sodium benzoate or similar substance. No wonder people used to complain of the cloying mouth feel from their gin and tonics!
What was the point of the premium gin, vodka, whisky and rum companies making excellent spirits if they were to be served up with mixers of such poor quality that the whole drinking experience was compromised?
So in 2004, with my colleague Tim Warrillow, we set about making a range of mixers using the best all natural ingredients. The mixers were to be delicious, using ingredients as fresh as possible, and preserved naturally. We started with tonic water because that was the one which I knew needed the most urgent makeover after my Plymouth Gin experience.
the name
Fever-Tree, because we would use the finest natural quinine from the bark of the Chinchona tree (fever-tree in colloquial use) in our tonic and bitter lemon. We launched in early 2005 on the UK market. Demand for our tonic water was fantastic. With hundreds of emails coming in from people saying that Fever-Tree tonic had got them drinking gin and tonic again. There could be no better news than that. We were having the positive impact on the drinks market that we set out to have.
Bitter lemon was added by October 2005. A classic which has been so badly abused by the major soft drinks producers it could be found only in the form of lurid blue-green liquid. Arguably nothing captures the overall essence of Fever-Tree better than our Bitter Lemon. All natural, of course as with all our products, and in contrast with the blue-green artificial bitter lemons on the market at the time, ours was so obviously natural - in colour, in taste, in the cleaness of 'finish'. It was another product which also gained an immediate following.
Ginger Ale was next. Each recipe was taking an age to develop but we were determined to go through as many iterations as necessary to get the natural flavours which we believed would not only stand on their own as good soft drinks, but also enhance the taste profiles of the great spirits.
Soda Water (Club Soda) and a natural Clear Lemonade followed in 2007 along the same lines.
awards
One year after launch we were thrilled to get shortlisted for the World Gastronic Festival in San Sebastian, Spain. With over 15 on the shortlist we travelled to Spain to be greeted by the news that Fever-Tree tonic water had won the 'best gourmet' prize.
Since then our Bitter Lemon was shortlisted in the US by the specialty foods association (NASFT). The only drink on the podium, we were runner up.
There are lots of notes on our Ingredients, and how to mix for perfection (Cocktails) and where to obtain the world's finest mixers (Availability) in this site. And we haven't nearly finished yet. The goal? To enhance the whole experience of the long drink.
Charles Rolls, Co-founder. 2007