Premium Cocktail Mixers: Tonic, Ginger Beer and Syrups Worth Buying

Buy two mixers bottled and premium, a tonic and a ginger beer, then add a real pomegranate grenadine and an orgeat. Make simple syrup yourself: it is only sugar and water. Pay for quinine source, real ginger and fruit juice on the label, and skip anything colored with dye or sweetened with corn syrup alone.

Which mixers belong in a home bar?

Bottled tonic water: what sets premium apart

Quinine is what makes tonic bitter, and premium makers say where theirs comes from. Fever-Tree’s Premium Tonic Water uses quinine from cinchona trees in the eastern hill ranges of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with oils from Mexican bitter oranges, and lists only spring water, sugar, citric acid and natural flavors. The brand takes its name from the colloquial name for the cinchona tree.

Q Mixers takes a different line. Its tonic is sweetened with organic agave and made with real quinine and what the maker calls optimal carbonation, aiming for a bold, classic taste that is not overly sweet.

Choose by taste. Fever-Tree describes a gentle bitterness with a subtle citrus note from its bitter orange; Q pitches a bolder, less sweet tonic. Fever-Tree sells single-serve bottles and smaller cans for hosting, and Q sells cans, so you can keep a few of each.

Small bottles suit a home bar better than large ones: one bottle per drink means every pour comes from a freshly opened bottle.

Tonic syrup: the concentrate option

A tonic syrup lets you set the bitterness yourself. Jack Rudy calls its Classic Tonic Syrup essentially a quinine concentrate, with botanicals and real cane sugar, meant to be stretched with soda water. Boston General Store lists lemongrass and orange peel among the ingredients and says it is made in the USA. Top a small measure with soda water over ice, adding more syrup for a more bitter drink and less for a lighter one.

One bottle of syrup takes less shelf space than a case of tonic, which suits a bar that only pours tonic now and then. Over ice with a squeeze of lime, it is a complete zero-proof drink on its own.

Tonic syrups and craft tonic concentrates

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Ginger beer or ginger ale?

Ginger beer is the spicier of the two. Tasting Table explains that ginger beer is brewed and fermented from ginger, sugar, yeast and water, which gives it a stronger ginger taste, while ginger ale is a carbonated soft drink with a milder ginger flavor.

Fever-Tree’s Premium Ginger Beer is a non-alcoholic ginger beer brewed from three gingers, from Nigeria, Cochin in India and the Ivory Coast. The maker describes the Cochin ginger as warm and spicy, the Ivory Coast ginger as fresh with a lemongrass note, and the Nigerian ginger as deep and intense.

Grenadine: look for pomegranate first

Grenadine most likely gets its name from the French word for pomegranate. Punch says it was historically made from tart-sweet pomegranate juice and sugar, and warns that commercial grenadines are often made from high-fructose corn syrup and dye instead.

Liber & Co. Real Grenadine shows the difference. The maker cold-processes pomegranates from California’s San Joaquin Valley and lists pomegranate juice first, then cane sugar and orange flower water, with no dyes or artificial flavors. Punch also points to artisanal producers such as Small Hand Foods.

Read the first ingredient. If it is pomegranate juice, the syrup will taste of fruit and acid; if it is corn syrup and the color comes from a dye, it will mostly taste sweet.

Orgeat: the almond syrup

Orgeat, pronounced roughly “ohr-zsa” with a silent t, is traditionally a syrup of almonds, sugar and rose water or orange flower water. Difford’s Guide describes the flavor as almond and marzipan with a bittersweet edge, and notes that the name comes from the French for barley, once part of the recipe. It turns a plain lemon or lime sour into something richer.

Orgeat has a long bar history: Difford’s Guide notes that Jerry Thomas called for it in his 1862 bartender’s guide. Today it is typically sold as a non-alcoholic syrup, and Difford’s lists several, from Small Hand Foods to Teisseire. Difford’s also warns drinkers with a nut allergy to avoid it, since orgeat is made from almonds and some bartenders now use other nuts.

Grenadine, orgeat and other cocktail syrups

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Simple syrup: make it at home

Simple syrup is the one mixer not worth buying. Difford’s Guide makes 1:1 syrup by shaking equal parts sugar and room-temperature water in a sealed container, no heat needed. For a richer 2:1 syrup, it dissolves the sugar over low heat, strains out any crystals and bottles it; kept in the fridge, that syrup lasts about six months. The 2:1 version also adds less water to a drink: Difford’s puts the extra dilution from 1:1 syrup at around 5 to 8%. On the other hand, 1 oz of 1:1 syrup roughly balances 1 oz of citrus juice, which makes recipes easy to scale.

Where the mixers go next

Tall drinks need the right glass and good ice: see our highball and rocks glasses in the cocktail glasses guide and clear ice at home. A jigger keeps syrups consistent, and our bar tools guide covers which to buy. For drinks to mix, see zero-proof cocktails and non-alcoholic sparkling wine. The home bar setup overview lists everything else in buying order.