Wajos Summer Tonic Syrup. Sugar, orange, lemon, rosemary and quinine, for mixing yourself – the tonic syrup for gin and tonic and sparkling water, as bitter as you like.

Wajos Summer Tonic Syrup is a syrup for making a quinine-based soft drink, made from sugar, natural orange and lemon flavorings, rosemary extract, citric acid, and quinine flavoring, 200 ml, from Dohr on the Moselle. Not a ready-made tonic water, not a fruit syrup for children, not a liqueur, but a concentrate that you mix with sparkling water to create your own tonic.

Summer Tonic Syrup by Wajos reverses the ratio. With store-bought tonic water, the manufacturer decides how bitter, how sweet, and how much carbonation it has – you get what's inside. With the syrup, you decide: a small splash for a subtle tonic, a larger one for a bold one, and the sparkling water comes from your own machine or the bottle already in the cellar. The summer version tastes of orange, lemon, and rosemary – bright, fruity, with the bitterness of the quinine as a backbone. 200 milliliters of syrup is enough for many glasses for us and takes up less space in the fridge than a single six-pack.

Orange and lemon up front, rosemary behind, quinine in the finish

Straight, the syrup tastes like a concentrate: very sweet, very bitter. Once mixed, it sorts itself out. First the citrus fruit, orange and lemon from natural flavorings, then the rosemary, aromatic and slightly resinous, and finally the quinine, which leaves a dry sensation in the mouth. Honestly: The syrup is almost entirely sugar, 94 grams per 100 milliliters, and the fruit comes from flavorings rather than juice – but with two centiliters in a glass, little of that remains. It is not suitable for those who expect a classic, neutral tonic – in that case, it is worth looking at the Botanical Tonic Syrup.

With sparkling water as a tonic, with gin as a summer drink, with vodka as a long drink

The basic recipe: one to two centiliters of syrup in a tall glass, ice, fill with cold sparkling water, stir once. Then taste and add more – more syrup, more bitterness and sweetness. With 4 centiliters of gin, it becomes a gin and tonic where the syrup complements the botanicals; add a slice of orange and a sprig of rosemary. With vodka and a splash of lemon juice, it makes a long drink for the balcony. The syrup is not suitable as a lemonade for children – bitter and containing quinine, this is a drink for adults, with gin or alcohol-free.

Our tip: 4 centiliters of Summer Gin, 2 centiliters of Summer Tonic Syrup, ice, sparkling water, orange slice – the drink we mix on the terrace in July when it’s still 25 degrees after eight o'clock.

Tonic syrups from Dohr, from a house with a bar tradition

Wajos in Dohr near Cochem on the Moselle started with liquids: Walter Josef Oster, from a winemaking family in Ediger-Eller with 15 generations of viticulture, founded a liqueur manufactory in the 1980s. His son Peter Oster and Ulf Schwichtenberg built it into a brand with over 80 employees, around 900 items, and its own laboratory. The tonic syrups are the non-alcoholic side of this bar, and they go well with their own gins.

The syrup for gin fans, summer evenings, and people who don't want crates of tonic taking up space

It is the bottle for everyone who drinks gin and tonic and likes to have control over the tonic themselves – and for households where the sparkling water machine is running anyway. As a gift, it belongs next to the gin; if you want to try them out, you can find several varieties in the Tonic Syrup Tasting Pack; the Pink Grapefruit Tonic Syrup is the grapefruit variation, and all syrups can be found on our Wajos page. Store in a dry place away from light, and seal well once opened. It is not suitable for those looking for a sugar-free tonic.

Orange, lemon, rosemary and quinine, for mixing yourself – the summer tonic syrup from the Moselle, where you determine how bitter it gets.