Photo by Kensie Wallner

G&T Summer Nights

By Abel Busoni
Contributing Writer

The summer coils up all spring before releasing the heat, bringing sunshine, lakes, summer loves, and baseball proper. Suburban dens and decks light up on weekend summer nights, balmy, balmy nights, where men have it out with pit stains and women sit with crossed legs and short jeans or cutoffs over summer cocktails or beer. Meat sings on barbecues up and down streets, and you can smell it. Who’s watching the Twins? Some folks hit the bars downtown or house parties. Remaining college students (who are of age) sit on decks or rooftops having a drink, talking, talking, talking, what the music? What the politics? What the movies? What the poem? Summer loves burn, aided and abetted by the elliptical nature of the Earth’s orbit. Full moons on hot summer nights bring blood to a boil. Downtown, out of town, undertown, uptown, everywhere where hearts and minds are singed with the flame of sunny inspiration, you will often find the gin and tonic, hereby known as the G&T.
The G&T is the classic long summer drink, typically mixed 3 to 1 (gin to tonic). We may not like gin. We may not like tonic. But we love the gin and tonic! A drink that became popular in the middle of the twentieth century, it creates the most improbably delicious combination you can find in any drink, anywhere. Tonic contains a poisonous chemical called quinine that’s rumored to help us ward off mosquitoes during a G&T session. Gin is what you would call a “botanical” liquor, which is to say an alchohol infused with different herbs - and has its roots in the British Empire’s relentless pursuit of spices and the Dutch’s urge to make a botanical liquor with juniper berries.
What many people don’t know is that there are a number of really good variations on the G&T.

Classic G&T
3 parts gin
1 part tonic
Lemon or lime

Method
::Put ice cubes in a tall glass or one of those really big wine glasses. Squeeze the lemon or lime on the cubes. Rub and squeeze the lemon or lime around the rim of the glass. Pour in the gin. Add the tonic with all haste. Making a G&T exactly like this makes a difference.

Ginger G&T
3 parts gin
1 part tonic
Bit of ginger root
Lemon or lime (optional)

Method
There are different ways to do this drink. There are a number of suggestions on the internet that I would not recommend ... the idea here isn’t to make a proper cocktail, but rather a drink infused with ginger. No funky business.
You can do it the infusion way and peel the ginger, slice it up, and add it directly to a bottle of gin until you’ve got the desired gingerness (I doubt it will take more than a couple hours tops ... check it and be sure to remove the ginger!), or you can do it my way, which is to slice up the ginger and shake it with the gin. Lemon and ginger are a classic combination, so if you insist on some citrus, rim the glass. Myself? I omit the lemon/lime completely from this drink.

Cucumber G&T
3 parts gin
1 part tonic
Cucumber

This G&T is so soothing that you’ll want to rub it all over your sunburn.

Method
::Again, there are different ways to go about this.
::Start by making some thick cucumber slices to put in the drinks.
::Peel the rest, slice them in half the long way, and use a spoon to take the seeds out (slide the spoon along the inside of the cucumber to scoop them out in one or two goes).
::Grate the remaining cucumber in the largest grater size you have, and shake a scoop of the grated cucumber with the gin before preparing the drink.

The idea here is to make the cucumber infusion instantly without getting the pulp in the drink. If you like pulp, you can get more cucumber taste by adding finely grated cucumber directly to the G&T instead of shaking the gin.

Grapefruit G&T
3 parts gin
1 part tonic
Grapefruit

Again, there’s different ways to go about it. You can squeeze a wedge of grapefruit on the ice cubes and rim the glass like you would with a lemon or lime for a simple, light grapefruit sensation. If you feel like going bigger, you can juice a grapefruit and add a half part. Either way, garnish with a good looking cut of the fruit.

Tips, variations, and ideas
::Go for Rangpur or Tanqueray 10 if you’re not a gin fan. These gins are meant for vodka people.
::If you’re on a budget, Seagram’s is underrated.
::Where can you put mint? Fresh rosemary? What other citrus can you use? What about strawberries or raspberries? There’s a gazillion possible variations, and so long as you’re not mixing with mayonnaise and you stick with 3 to 1, you’re likely to have something drinkable.
::Experiment with different gins and different tonics. It makes a difference what tonic you use. I stick with Seagram’s or Schweppes, but there are designer tonics out there to take a look at.

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