Wicked Good Guides / Wicked Good Guide to Boston English /

Tonic

A carbonated beverage, you know, like Coke or Moxie. Oldtimers remember before the supamahket chains went all national and had "tonic" and "diet tonic" signs above their aisles.

At the Ohrenberger School,
West Roxbury, 12/6/02:
tonic sign

Comments

I moved from New Hampshire to Oklahoma a few years ago and ppl out here think it's so funny that I call all carbonated beverages Tonic, and not funny to them that they call it Pop..go figure.

Kelley on December 17, 2003 01:40 PM.

Yeah, same out here in Arizona. In Southie a "Pop" is a beer or a drink. " Hey IM going to Sully's to have a pop."

Billey on February 14, 2004 11:43 AM.

isnt tonic a drug? wouldnt people get confused

Koby on June 21, 2004 03:32 AM.

the octagenarians in my family said tonic. i say coke or soda. go figya.

greg on November 1, 2004 08:57 PM.

I grew up in Littleton, MA, and my Mom still calls all carbonated beverages tonic. I now live in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and I staht laughing until it hurts when read things on this web site.
This is wicked awesome.

Mark on November 4, 2004 06:26 PM.

My mum always called it tonic, and, thus, so did we.
Moved to the midwest where it is called Pop. People here figure that back in Boston we called it soda, but don't believe that we called it Tonic. Then they comment that it would be confused with gin and tonic, or tonic water. I always say, well couldn't soda be confused with soda water.

graeme on November 13, 2004 06:07 PM.

My wife moved to Boston in the 1960s from Denver. She went out one warm summer afternoon the first summer she was there to purchase the ingredients for Gin and Tonics. In the first store she went into, she asked for the "tonic" and was told it was in the back of the store. She found lots of sodas but nothing for a Gin and Tonic.

Thinking that the store didn't carry it or was out of it, she tried another store with the same results.

After going to a third store, again with the same results, she was beginning to believe that Bostonians did not drink Gin and Tonics, and made a comment to that effect to the shopkeeper. The shopkeeper replied, "Oh, you mean Quinine Water -- it's over with the liquor."

Paul on December 1, 2004 04:38 PM.

Haven't confirmed it very recently, but some older Star Markets (i.e. Chestnut Hill, Waltham) still have "Tonic" and "Diet Tonic" signs hanging above the soda aisle

Jonathan on January 11, 2005 10:55 AM.

It's true! I live in (on?) Winter Hill, Somerville and the Shaws up the street says Tonic and Diet tonic in the soda aisle, although not many seems to SAY tonic anymore.

Drew J on December 8, 2005 11:01 PM.

I love this web site! I was telling my in-laws and friends in Fl that in Boston we call Pepsi, Coke whatever tonic, they thought I was crazy. I moved to CA in my early 20's and asked for tonic and they brought me tonic water, I almost chocked.

Susan on December 16, 2005 09:39 AM.

Tonic sighting! Market Basket in Leominster.

http://microcosm.ath.cx/misc/tonic.jpg

g dash nelson on March 19, 2006 08:09 PM.

"Tonic" is such a weirdly localized thing... I grew up in Rho Dieland, then lived in Worcester, Shrewsbury, Lawrence, Salem, Beverly, Allston, Marlborough, and Wayland, and the only time I ever hear that word used is by my sister from Cow Hampshire. To me, it's always been soda.

Jeff on July 26, 2006 11:38 AM.

Tonic- that's rich. In the dirty south we refer to any soda pop as a "Coke. I was visiting relatives in Iowa and suggested to my cousins that we go into a "Sing" (Tallahasseean for convenience store- used to all be Sing Stores then got bought out by Circle K, we still call 'em Sing) and get a "Coke". After we worked out what a sing was we headed into the joint and I grabbed a sprite or some such, and they've got their cokes and looking at me like I'm a nut job. "I thought you wanted a coke" they said, and I'm like, "Yeah. Coke." and pointing at the can of sprite. After we figured out the difference or lack there of between "Coke" and "Pop" we lit outta there. Good thing our other cousins from New Bedfid weren't there or we'd probably still be tying to figure it out.

Baron on July 27, 2006 06:51 PM.

last time i was there, they had signs for tonic in the white hen pantry in concord.

Helen on July 17, 2007 10:51 PM.

I grew up in Swampscott back in the 60's and you bettah believe we called it "tonic"! And one thing's foah shuah, my Mom would never have let me have a tonic with suppah!

Of course, having lived in Los Angeles for the last 31 years of my life (I call them the "post-Big Yaz Bread" years), I will have a "soda" with my "dinner" anytime I damn well please ;)

(I also never recall ever saying "Wickid pissah" between 1958 and 1976, either)

Greg E. on December 5, 2007 08:06 AM.

I grew up in Methuen back in the early 50s and spent many summers at the local YMCA camps and even met some kids from “as far away as Boston”, imagine that! It wasn’t until the Vietnam draft sent me to one of their summer camps, that I realized, “ I was the one with an accent, and nobody else in the world except me and those kids at the YMCA summer camp ever referred to soda as “Tonic”. Even that guy bunking next to me thought it was weird. I know because one day he said to me “I heered y’all call sodee pop, tonic, dats just plumb weird”. I don’t think he was from Boston.

The world is a little bit smaller now.

Dennis on February 16, 2008 03:10 PM.

My mother's side of the family is from Lawrence and they always say tonic.

samantha t on April 22, 2008 04:47 PM.

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