Q Tonic

[emilief]

Love the tonic water Q tonic, but the local source, Lower Falls Wine, charges about $7.50 for a 4 pack. Does anyone know of a cheaper local source- Boston or metro west?? Also are there any local restaurants using this stuff ? It has a nice clean flavor and is not too sweet. If you make a gin and tonic with it side by side with Schweppes you will notice a big difference. (No, I have no ownership interest in this company).

[erow]

Upper Falls Liquor on Needham Street charges $6.30 for a 4-pack of 6.2 oz. bottles. This might be the best price around.

[lipoff]

I've gotten Q Tonic before from Darwin's in Cambridge, although I doubt that they have a great price, I don't really remember. I love tonic water and I've tried Q, Stirrings and Fever Tree side-by-side with some other brands. They are certainly very different. My all-time favourite is Schweppes "Indian" Tonic water, which I bring back with me from the UK from time to time. It is more heavily quinine flavored and less sweet with a slight after taste from a little bit of saccharine. To be honest, I wasn't the biggest fan of Q, Stirrings or Fever Tree. I found Stirrings too sweet, Q to have too many other flavors going on, and while I preferred Fever Tree the most of the three "botique" brands, I found it to be less heavy on the quinine than I prefer. All things considered, I think I prefer even the US Schweppes. Recently, I've been drinking more Diet Schweppes, because it has more of the astringency that I associate with the Indian Tonic Water. I much prefer all of those I mentioned above to Polar, Canada Dry and Seagrams, which I find too carbonated, too sharp, and too sweet respectively. Bear in mind that I am drinking the tonic water by itself, and not in a gin & tonic, so maybe that accounts for some difference.

[CookieLee]

I too like to drink tonic water neat. What I would really like is Schweppes Bitter Lemon soda. Also, Dr. Brown's diet Celery Soda.

[MC Slim JB]

I actually found Schweppes Bitter Lemon recently! It's in battered bottles, probably imported from the Anglophone Caribbean, at Tropical Market, aka Platanero, on Washington St west of Melnea Cass in Roxbury. $1.50 for a 12-oz bottle, almost certainly sugar-sweetened, not HFCS, which is the whole point of my quality-tonic quest. I was shocked to find it at any price, so picked up a few bottles. Love that stuff.

(I hardly ever drink soda, but love Cel-Ray, too. I haven't seen the diet in a non-deli retail setting in a while.)

http://mcslimjb.blogspot.com/

[CookieLee]

wow, how cool is that?! I'll have to get over there. thanks! They don't make the Cel-Ray in diet anymore. sad.

[Spenbald]

I believe we just paid $6.50 at Martignetti's last weekend.

[BarmyFotheringayPhipps]

I find Whole Foods' 365 brand tonic as good as either Q or Fever Tree, and it's $2.79 for a six-pack of 12-ounce cans.

[MC Slim JB]

$7.49 for a 4-pack of 6.2-oz bottles at Foodies Urban Market in the South End. Yikes! It's good, but I don't think it's that good, either.

One industry person I know would like to use it at his bar, but at 80 cents a bottle at wholesale cost, even he can't do it.

http://mcslimjb.blogspot.com/

[GretchenS]

Yes, it's yummy all right. My source (the liquor store next to Fresh Pond Whole Foods) actually sells it for $7.99 so will be very interested to know if there are other cheaper places to buy it.

[jkv]

While $8 for a four-pack does seem to more or less be the going rate for the Q, I have seen the comparably good Fever Tree at Liquor World in Porter Square for (I think) $6 for 4.

And, annoyingly, Pemberton Market, a little further down Mass Ave, had several of the Fever Tree products--ginger ale, bitter lemon--but not the tonic water, for like $4 for a four-pack. This was a couple weeks ago, and may have changed since then.

[crazycrazypete]

Davis Square liquors and Porter square both charge the same. I was not impressed enough to pay the premium - well at least not when I am having guests over.