“Purple is my favorite color.” Farmer Doug

Beyond being one of Farmer Doug’s favorite things, what does the color purple have in common with a gin & tonic.

The rabbit hole was deep on this one my friends, but sit back, grab a Grape Nehi and follow along for a little history on the color purple!. 

The story of purple begins in ancient times with the rare and labor-intensive process of creating Tyrian purple dye. Named after the Phoenician city of Tyre, this dye was extracted from the mucus of sea snails, specifically the Murex snail. It is said that it took tens of thousands of these snails to produce a single ounce of dye, making purple dye incredibly valuable. (Brief aside. This also reminds me of the labor productivity put forth by our honeybees. Our bees will collectively fly over 50,000 miles and gather the nectar of about 2,000,000 flowers to make 1 pound of honey).

Easy to see why purple is considered the color of royalty and honey the nectar of the gods.

At the height of its use in ancient Egypt, Persia, and Rome, the cost of purple fabric put it out of the reach of all but the very elite. In Rome, it was synonymous with imperial power, as only emperors and high-ranking officials were “permitted” to wear “royal purple.” This early association with wealth and power cemented purple as a symbol of exclusivity and prestige.

During the Middle Ages, purple retained an esteemed association – with its use expanding to both the church and nobility. Bishops and other high-ranking clergy often wore garments trimmed with purple, reflecting both spiritual and temporal authority. The color's rarity and cost meant it remained out of reach for the masses.

That is until a happy accident. Happy to me at least.

In 1856, in pursuit of a challenge put forth by his professor to synthesize quinine, chemist (actually an 18-year-old student) William Henry Perkin failed to make quinine, but he did notice a purple residue in his failed solution. Eventually realizing that he had serendipitously created a purple dye, Perkin soon proved that he was a better businessman than chemist. 

Once he determined that his "aniline purple" was suitable as a dye of silk and other textiles, Perkin patented the dye, and the next year started a company mass producing it. The dye was originally called aniline purple, but in 1859, it was named mauve in England for the French name for the mallow flower, and chemists later called it mauveine. This was the first time that purple was accessible to folks like Farmer Doug, and it immediately became a fashion must have. It was so popular that it soon became a bit of a punching bag, with publications poking fun at the huge popularity of the color and its widespread adoption.

Phewww, so that’s the 411 on purple, but how does that tie to Doug’s love for Gin & Tonics?

First you must understand what quinine is, and why so many people were attempting to synthesize it. Quinine is a chemical compound extracted from the bark of the Cinchona tree – a tree found only in the Andes region of South America – which did not make it easy to acquire and process in the 1800’s.

As quinine was the only effective cure known for malaria at the time, this made the pursuit of the synthesization of quinine of great interest as much of it was needed as malaria was running rampant at the time in many parts of the world.

Quinine also happens to be very bitter. British soldiers and colonists in India, facing high malaria rates, began mixing quinine with soda water and sugar to make the medicine go down if you will. This mixture, known as “tonic water,” was then, as it is now, often combined with gin, creating the classic gin and tonic. Perhaps Farmer Doug’s favorite summer cocktail.

Voila! There you have it. Purple (Doug’s favorite color) was made accessible for all in the search for synthetic quinine, the key ingredient in the Gin & Tonic (Doug’s favorite summer beverage).

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