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Fever Tree : Legend has it that the bark of the fever-tree was first used by the Spanish in the early 1630s when it was given to the Countess of Chinchon, who had contracted malaria. The Countess recovered and the healing properties of the tree were discovered.The healing power of this remarkable tree only became world renowned in the 1820’s when officers of the Indian Army, in an attempt to ward off malaria, mixed quinine (the extract from the bark of the fever-tree) with sugar and water, creating the first Indian Tonic Water.It was made more palatable when they added a little expedient of gin to the mixture. The original gin and tonic was thus born, and soon became the archetypal drink of the British Empire, the origins of which were firmly planted in the ‘fever-tree’.