Reforesting the Roots of Tonic
By: Nick Kokonas
Tags: Cocktails, Disease, History, South America, Trees

I’m hunched over in the entryway of a makeshift greenhouse on the roof of a one-story concrete building just outside the central square in Trujillo, Peru. My companion just executed a well-rehearsed acrobatic routine as he ascended a ladder in the back room of his modest home to a worn-out wooden ledge. He then bound over a gap exposing an eight-foot drop to the hallway we just passed through, limboed cross-hatched clotheslines, and stuck the landing onto a single-file walkway. With far less zeal, I followed suit.

Access point to the greenhouse

Roque Raul Rodriguez Barrutia has just pulled back the dense black netting of his greenhouse, nursery, and laboratory to reveal hundreds of cinchona saplings individually covered with clear plastic bags and tied off with a colorful assortment of craft store ribbon. It’s the first time I’ve laid eyes on a cinchona tree.

Cinchona (sin-Koh-nuh) is a tree native to the forests of the Andes mountains ranging from Bolivia to southern Columbia. The tree is historically renowned for its medicinal properties, specifically the alkaloid quinine present in its bark, which arrests the symptoms of the blood disease malaria. Most people are familiar with it in a different form, as the essential ingredient in tonic water.

The use of cinchona (also known as quina) began in the early 1600s after European colonizers in South America learned of the fever remedy from the indigenous people. Malaria is the most prevelant cause of death throughout the history of the world. Once discovered as a cure, South America’s forests were ransacked for cinchona bark over the next 250 years, providing European imperial powers the means to colonize the world without succumbing to sickness and death at the hands of malaria. In the mid-1800s, seeds and saplings were smuggled out of South America to form plantations in British India and Dutch Java. I’ve found myself in South America intending to learn more about the cinchona tree’s past, present, and future.

Cinchona tree

I spent the morning with the 62-year-old Barrutia and his sister, Kelly Rodriquez, who graciously acted as our interpreter because I decided to take French in high school. Barrutia has been diligently working to revive the cinchona tree population throughout Peru for well over a decade. I first met with him in his childhood home as he unpacked the contents of a reusable grocery bag onto a coffee table.

Across the table, I’m presented with a few random bottles, a couple of Petri dishes, and two plastic to-go containers. My interpreter has vanished for the moment. Barrutia is talking about the Pisco Sour and handing me some of the bottles on the table, encouraging me to taste them. Besides the words “Pisco Sour” (the national drink of Peru that consists of Pisco, lemon juice, simple syrup, egg white, and Angostura bitters), I have no idea what he is telling me, but I have an innate need to continuously nod in agreement in situations where I don’t know what is happening.

Kelly returns, much to my relief, and says, “let me know if there is something you don’t understand.” I come clean and throw myself at her mercy. She doesn’t hide her amused laugh at my ineptitude.

Cinchona Sprout

Barrutia’s day job is in a laboratory in the town of Trujillo, but his work with cinchona is his passion. He was inspired by a 2005 article in his local newspaper about the demise of the tree that graces the national shield on the Peruvian flag. Deciding to take up the cause, he commenced a search and found native cinchona trees over 300 miles away in the humid mountain region of Jaén, Peru. He proceeded to procure seeds, set up his rooftop greenhouses, and got to work.

The current stage of his work is to show the cinchona tree is more resilient than previously thought. He has collected soil samples from around the country, including areas severely contaminated by industrial mining. He is having success germinating seeds and nursing the trees into saplings, but the true testament to success is the quantity of usable quinine from the mature trees. The goal is to revitalize the tree population in Peru in order to begin commercial production, but that will take years. Cinchona trees are typically harvested around 18 years old to maximize quinine yields.

The majority of bark today is currently produced in a war-torn region of Northern Congo. India and Indonesia also produce cinchona bark, but very little comes from the tree’s native habitat of the Andes. Cinchona is still used in the same applications it has been for centuries. 60% of worldwide production is used medically, while the remaining 40% is sold to the food and beverage industry.

The current state of wild cinchona in the Andes is dire. In the highlands of Peru, indiscriminate land clearing for farming and coca (cocaine) production has been the culprit in the slow decline of trees. It is difficult to contend with such industries when poverty is such a prevalent issue.

With the next phase of Barrutia’s project, he hopes to change the Peruvian cocktail landscape and create a national aromatic bitters to supplant the current use of Angostura in the Pisco Sour. The supply of the cinchona bittered Angostura occasionally dwindles in Peru, and when a bar runs out, they substitute ground cinnamon instead; it’s a practice that is unacceptable to Barrutia and something I witnessed on multiple occasions. The bottles I tasted earlier showcased different cinchona flower tinctures and macerated seeds. Experiments in flavor. The hopeful beginnings of Peruvian grown aromatic bitters.

Those plastic to-go containers are used for the germination of his seeds. Lack of funding has been an issue since the beginning of this project. According to Barrutia, the national government does not seem interested in his work. When I ask why, I get an answer alluding to government corruption, which means the budget for his project has been floated from his own pockets. Using plastic containers, bottles, bags, and even discarded plastic champagne flutes have allowed him to recycle while cutting costs. After germinating the seeds, the sprouting plants are placed in individual containers. Once transferred, it will be another two years before the plants are hardy enough to be transported to their permanent homes throughout the country.

Slowly but surely, it’s working.

Rooftop greenhouse

For more information about tonic visit www.somethingandtonic.com and keep and eye out for the upcoming cocktail book Something & Tonic being released in spring 2021.