Tons of tonic!

Sure, this might be pushing it a bit but.. Hey, I do like a good gin tonic! A lot. The fact that all the tonic goodness pictured above - from SwedishTonic - ended up on our kitchen table is interesting and there's definitely a back story to it..

The tonic produced by the folks at Swedish Tonic in Stockholm is different; those guys are dead serious about their tonic and the (yup, pricy) liquid is apparently hand made from scratch - no artificial flavors whatsoever. Their tonic also has this really neat amber glow since that's what you get if you use 'real Chinchona Bark'. Anyway, that's what they say and I choose to believe them.

I'm not sure where I heard about SwedishTonic the first time but I have bought their tonic syrup several times now; I prefer mixing the tonic with sparkling water - from our Soda Stream, works great - myself, instead of buying their bottled tonic (which is also good).

So, earlier this winter I noticed that Systembolaget - the state liquor store in Sweden - would soon get the special Christmas glögg from SwedishTonic, spiced with gin of course. I made my move quickly and reserved two bottles right away. They were not cheap, by the way.

Then came Christmas time, and also time to sample some very special glögg! Me and my wife opened the beautiful bottle, took a little sip, looked at each other slightly puzzled, took another one - and we were done. Not tasty; somehow bitter and almost perfumelike aftertaste. I wasn't happy, partly because there was one more bottle in the cellar.

I had been in touch with the SweTnc folks before so I decided to shoot them an email with some feedback. Not long after I sent the mail I got a reply stating they were sorry I didn't like the glögg and they would be happy to mail some tonic my way. Okay, no objections to that.

A couple of days later I got a notification on my phone: there was a package from SweTnc waiting at the local grocery store, a ten minutes' walk from our house. Cool, I figured I'll take a walk and bring that bottle of tonic back in the pocket of my down jacket. At the store I went to the cashier, showed the delivery info and then got my package - all 10 kg of it (yup, that's more than 20 lbs US)! I was pretty sure the folks at the store had made a mistake but nope, it was my package alright.

It was a short walk from the store but it had been snowing quite a bit and when I was back home I was drenched with sweat.

I wonder if the SweTnc guys somehow knew that I would collect my package on foot. Could they also have checked the weather in advance so they knew about the heavy snowfall in my area?! Shoot, I'd guess I'll never know - and, actually, I don't care that much. I think I'm going to make myself and my wife a really good gin tonic.

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