Quinine Flavor Concentrate, Natural

Nature's Flavors Quinine Flavor Concentrate is a very rich and full-bodied flavor. It is very strong, so a little goes a long way. This flavor is excellent for baking at about 1-5% usage, depending on how hot and how long you bake it for. It is good in ice cream, sorbets, icees, shakes, sauces, beverages, puddings, and yogurts.

Discovered to be a great fever reducer, quinine was first extracted by the Quechua Indians of Peru from the bark of cinchona trees to help reduce fevers. They would grind the bark and mix it with water to offset its bitterness, thereby creating the first tonic water. Jesuit missionaries first arrived in the New World in the early 17th century, and were introduced to the bark and it’s anti-fever properties. The bark became known as 'Peruvian Bark', and the tree was named Cinchona after the wife of the Viceroy of Peru, the Countess of Chinchón, was cured of her fever after being treated by the curative properties of the bark.

Having seen the anti-fever properties of the Peruvian bark, Jesuit missionaries returned to Europe and introduced Peruvian Bark as an anti-fever compound. The bark was dried and ground to a fine powder, and then mixed into a liquid for use. With malaria ravaging Europe, it quickly became one of the most valuable commodities shipped from Peru to Europe as a treatment against malaria, creating a high demand for the cinchona tree. This gave rise to a Spanish-controlled monopoly that dominated the sought after resource and led to the gradual decrease and overharvesting of the natural cinchona forest.

Quinine remained elusive until the early 1800s when French Chemist sought the active compound that reduced fevers. In 1820, French pharmacists, Pierre-Joseph Pelletier and Joseph-Bienaimé isolated and extracted the alkaloid, quinine, naming it after the Inca word for the cinchona bark, Quechua.

As Europe expanded and colonized into malaria-infested regions, so did the demand for quinine. In order to maintain their monopoly, Peru outlawed the exportation of cinchona seeds and saplings with little avail, as the Dutch cultivated plantations from smuggled seeds, resulted in approximately 97% of the world’s quinine production. During World War II, the allies were cut off from their supply of quinine when the Germans invaded the Netherlands and the Japanese occupied the Philippines and Indonesia. Due to the allies fighting in malaria-infested territory and limited availability of quinine, American scientists eagerly worked to synthetically create quinine. In desperation, the United States opened cinchona plantations in Costa Rica, but were unable to harvest in time leading to thousands of lost American lives due to malaria.