Low Carb Gin Tonic Cocktail

Low Carb Twist on a Classic Gin Tonic

About a year ago, I had to switch to a low carb (carbohydrate) diet and I was bummed that I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my favorite cocktail. Since carbs suddenly became precious, I didn’t want to exhaust my daily allowance in drinks:-)

Well, they say that necessity is the mother of all new cocktails (if I may twist the phrase a bit). I tried several different options, including diet tonic (yuck) and using club soda instead. Finally I came to this simple hack: start with a good quality Gin and just replace half the tonic with club soda, and you can barely tell the difference.

Fewer Carbs Than a Glass of Red Wine

In fact, with half the tonic, it turns out that a Gin Tonic has lower carbs and lower calories than a glass of red wine! Each ounce of tonic water has about 2.5 grams of carbs. Gin has zero carbs. So, a regular Gin Tonic, with 3 ounces of tonic, is about 130 calories and 7.5 grams of carbs, all in the form of added sugar (as much carbs as half a slice of bread).
The recipe below has 1.5 ounces of tonic (one measure of the Standard Jigger) and 1 ounce of soda, leading to about 110 calories, but only 3.75 grams of carbs. A glass of red wine has about 125 calories and 3.8 grams of carbs. See, I told ya! So, next time you have an urge for a Gin Tonic, try this no guilt, low carb, and lower calorie recipe. This is my favorite low carb cocktail. By the way, my favorite Gin currently is “Rangpur Tanqueray”; if you haven’t tried it already, believe me its worth a shot.