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

Wajos Summer Tonic Syrup is a syrup for making a quinine-containing refreshment, made from sugar, natural orange and lemon flavourings, rosemary extract, citric acid and quinine flavouring, 200 ml from Dohr on the Moselle. Not a finished tonic water, not a fruit syrup for children, not a liqueur, but a concentrate that you mix with sparkling water to make your own tonic.

Summer Tonic Syrup by Wajos turns the ratio around. With bottled tonic water, the manufacturer decides how bitter, how sweet and how much carbonation – you take what is in it. With the syrup, you decide: a small dash for a mild tonic, a larger one for a strong one, and the sparkling water comes from your own machine or the bottle that is already in the cellar. The summer version tastes of orange, lemon and rosemary – light, fruity, with the bitterness of quinine as the backbone. 200 millilitres of syrup make many glasses for us and take up less space in the fridge than a single six-pack.

Orange and lemon at the front, rosemary behind, quinine on the finish

Pure, the syrup tastes like a concentrate: very sweet, very bitter. When mixed, it sorts itself out. First the citrus fruit, orange and lemon from natural flavourings, then the rosemary, spicy and slightly resinous, and then the quinine, which leaves a dry taste in the mouth. Honestly: the syrup is almost entirely sugar, 94 grams per 100 millilitres, and the fruit comes from flavourings rather than juice – but with two centilitres in the glass, there is little left of that. It is not suitable for anyone expecting a classic, neutral tonic – then 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 centilitres of syrup in a tall glass, ice, top up with cold sparkling water, stir once. Then taste and adjust – more syrup, more bitterness and sweetness. With 4 centilitres of gin, it becomes a gin and tonic in which the syrup complements the botanicals; add a slice of orange and a sprig of rosemary. With vodka and a splash of lemon juice, a long drink for the balcony. The syrup is not suitable as a lemonade for children – bitter and containing quinine, it is a drink for adults, with gin or alcohol-free.

Our tip: 4 centilitres of Summer Gin, 2 centilitres of Summer Tonic Syrup, ice, sparkling water, orange slice – the drink we mix on the terrace in July when it is still 25 degrees at 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 the wine-growing family in Ediger-Eller, 15 generations of wine-growing, founded a liqueur manufactory in the 1980s. His son Peter Oster and Ulf Schwichtenberg built the brand from that, with over 80 employees, around 900 products and their own laboratory. The tonic syrups are the alcohol-free side of this bar, and they match their own gins.

The syrup for gin fans, summer evenings and people who are losing space to tonic cases

It is the bottle for everyone who drinks gin and tonics and likes to have the tonic in their own hand – and for households where the sparkling water machine is already running. As a gift, it belongs alongside the gin; anyone who wants to try it will find several varieties in the Tonic Syrup Tasting Pack, the Pink Grapefruit Tonic Syrup is the grapefruit variety, all syrups are on our Wajos page. Store in a cool, dark place, close well after opening. It is not suitable for anyone looking for a sugar-free tonic.

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