Fever is just the tonic one needs

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Halfway through a journey across the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Tim Warrillow found his taxi under attack from a band of local militia. First, they stopped his tracks with a plank of wood covered in six-inch nails. Then they brandished a rocket launcher and armoury of AK47s at his car. His cab driver knew what to do next, winding down the window and passing cash through a small gap.

Warrillow continued his danger-ridden tear through Africa, not in pursuit of Congo diamonds or reporting on the war in the east of the country, but on a quest for the perfect tonic water.

He and Charles Rolls, sharing a disgust for mass-market mixers, launched drinks company Fever-Tree in 2005. Rolls had helped to turn around spirits brand Plymouth Gin and sold it to Absolut Vodka; he wanted a new project. Warrillow had been working in an ad agency when Rolls’ gin success story caught his eye. They arranged a meeting and began talking about the mixer market. “There was really only one tonic water, made by Schweppes,” says Rolls. “The quality is awful. When I was running tasting sessions at Plymouth Gin, they were ruined by the mixer. But since it was the only thing out there, people had no choice.” The pair decided to set up a business making all-natural mixers, with Rolls investing £1 million from the Plymouth Gin sale.

“We spent 18 months on product development,” says Warrillow. “We didn’t want to be constrained by simply using the usual, easily accessible ingredients but go to all corners of the world in pursuit of the best we could find.” Hence that trip to the Congo to find the purest-quality quinine, from the bark of the fever tree.

“Unfortunately, the only remaining plantation of the original fever tree is in the eastern Congo, one of the most lawless places in the world,” Warrillow says. “To talk to the owners, I had to fly to Nairobi and get a taxi across Rwanda. I had my money rolled up in my sock.” It was all a long way from Fever-Tree headquarters, in an office block in King’s Road, Chelsea.

Once the duo had honed a recipe for Fever-Tree tonic water, they outsourced manufacturing to a plant in Somerset. At first orders were slow, but then a newspaper article prompted a call from buyer at Waitrose. “She said she had been waiting for a high-quality tonic water to pair with their growing premium spirit sales,” says Warrillow. The supermarket placed an initial order of 1600 bottles, which helped the drink’s profile take off. Warrillow and Rolls approached bartenders, buyers and food and drink journalists with the principle: “If three quarters of your gin and tonic is the tonic, make sure you use the best.”

“It proved a surprisingly fast start,” says Warrillow. An early fan was the late British artist Richard Hamilton, who spotted Fever-Tree in Waitrose, and sent a bottle to his friend and fellow G&T lover Ferran Adria, owner of El Bulli, widely considered the world’s best restaurant before it closed last year.

“Ferran was so taken that he made it into a dish at El Bulli: soupa de Fever-Tree tonica,” says Rolls. “The sorbet…prompted huge interest from the Spanish media.” Despite its economic struggles, Spain is, with the US, Fever-Tree’s biggest market outside the UK.

Sales in the first year hit £250,000, then £1 million by 2006, when they took a £1 million investment from private-equity house London & Lochside. Last year, sales hit £12.1 million. Now the drinks range has eight other mixers and sales are set to grow by 80% this year. It is sold in 36 countries, and served in eight of the world’s top 10 restaurants.

“We are,” says Warrillow, “very proud that from our London base we have helped put that most iconic of all British exports, gin and tonic, back on the international map.”

Founded: 2005

Staff: 12 in the UK and 10 abroad

Turnover: £12.1 million

Business idol: Jamie Oliver — “with few qualifications he has turned a passion into a very lucrative business… and dramatically improved the quality of many of my friends’ cooking.”