Britvic mixers have been around since the 1930’s. The name itself— Britvic— Is unusual. The British Vitamin Products Company was created to produce vitamins. Today, they’re a soft drink manufacturer.
Brtivic Tonic was reformulated and relaunched in 2016 to appeal to modern palates. It is doubly sweetened with both sugar and saccharin.
Tasting Notes
I first had Britvic Tonic on an international flight. “We know that when you fly, your sense of taste changes,” Julian Lyden, marketing manager at Cathay Pacific, said in an interview. “Airlines address this for food in certain ways.” [Source, NY Times] I therefore want to preemptively acknowledge my taste buds might have been compromised, and my perception of sweetness may have been reduced by 15-20% [source: Fraunhofer]
Quinine on the nose. Britvic Tonic smells like a tonic. Mid-palate there’s a definite sweetness about it. The bubbles are medium sized in texture and last for about 1–2 seconds.
A slight hint of lemon and gentle quinine, gradually builds to about medium strength on the palate. Britvic Tonic’s bitterness is quite sticky; it last a fairly long time with slight metallic undertones.
Overall the impression on the palate is clean. It’s certainly about on par with many other supermarket tonics in terms of sweetness. I like Britvic Tonic’s quinine and bitterness.
I had a Gin and Tonic with Beefeater Gin. Overall, it was clean and fresh. The quinine was good and complemented the gin. The sweetness seemed amplified with gin. Slight off notes on the finish with bitterness mixed with slight metallic finish on the edges of the palate.
Overall
Britvic Tonic does some decent things. The bitterness is pleasant and the sweetness is moderate. However, there’s so many tonic waters which do a better job without a slight tinny note on the finish that it’s hard to strongly recommend Britvic Tonic.