Stirring tonic essentially into a weak gin cocktail (9)
I believe the answer is:
awakening
'stirring' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps they are linked in a way I don't understand?
'tonic essentially into a weak gin cocktail' is the wordplay.
'essentially' indicates the central letters.
'into' indicates putting letters inside.
'cocktail' is an anagram indicator.
The centre of 'tonic' is 'n'.
'a'+'weak'+'gin'='aweakgin'
'aweakgin' with letters rearranged gives 'awakeing'.
'n' put into 'awakeing' is 'AWAKENING'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for awakening that I've seen before include "Stopping sleeping" , "Animating" , "state of arousal?" , "Cessation of sleep" , "Rousing - stirring" .)