Style and flavour
Sweet and fruity, with red berry and darker fruit flavours and a distinctly medicinal, herbal edge. Lighter in body than port, and simpler than Wincarnis or Buckfast.
Key ingredients
- Ruby British wine
- Sodium glycerophosphate (0.62% w/w, as declared)
- Sulphites
- Iron (With Added Iron variant only)
History
The Sanatogen name began as a German proprietary tonic rather than a wine. Bauer & Cie of Berlin held a United States patent for it dated 5 April 1898, and the product was at the centre of the 1913 US Supreme Court case Bauer & Cie v O'Donnell over resale pricing.
In Britain the name was later carried over to a tonic wine. A Sanatogen Tonic Wine advertisement ran in the Newbury Weekly News in 1943, which shows the wine was on sale by then; current product copy describes it as introduced fifty years ago, a phrase that cannot be dated.
In recent years the wine has been bottled by Accolade Wines, whose business has since become Vinarchy. It is described as Ruby British wine blended with a 'Sanatogen formula', sold in 70cl bottles at 15%, and an Original and a With Added Iron version have both been listed. Stock at UK retailers is now patchy, and one wholesaler lists the Original as discontinued.
Culture
Heavily advertised in the mid-twentieth century as a restorative, it now carries the label statement that the name 'Tonic Wine' does not imply health-giving or medicinal properties.
How to serve
Traditionally taken neat in a small glass. Master of Malt suggests trying it in place of sweet vermouth in a Negroni. For more ideas, see our tonic wine recipes.