Gin & Tonic

This year I have been getting into drinking lighter cocktails and one classic that I love is a gin and tonic. I've made two versions from Liquid Intelligence and it's really upped my gin and tonic game. It's incredible to read how much time, effort, and thinking that Dave Arnold put into this one cocktail. Since these were made using instructions and unchanged proportions from his book, no recipe will be written.

At the time of making these cocktails, I was fortunate enough to have borage blooming in my garden on my deck. The taste is pretty subtle, but they're really pretty to look at and I used some as a garnish. Using the simplest method in the book provides good tips about making them taste very consistent. Once you find a desired gin to tonic ratio, pour the combined gin and tonic in the glasses that you would typically serve them in and memorize where the fill-line goes to. When you make the cocktails, you can just measure out the gin in a jigger followed by pouring tonic water by eye up to that fill-line. Gently fill the glass with ice and squeeze with the amount of lime you prefer. If you have a bunch of glasses that are the same, this is a really good way of serving a lot quickly and consistently.

Sometimes I like to go as far as I can to recreate recipes to learn more about cooking or in this case, cocktail making. I wanted to recreate Dave Arnold's ultimate version of the gin and tonic. However, I don't have any practical means, disposable income, or space for the equipment to make this possible. My first compromise was not having a CO2 tank and I relied on my SodaStream for carbonation. Not as efficient or precise, but still gets the job done. I also used store bought tonic because at the time of these photos I really wanted some good gin and tonics, but getting reliably purified quinine sulfate comes at a very high premium. Making the clarified lime juice is very easy and well worth it for these types of cocktails. No harder than making Jell-O and some waiting. This version is served in a champagne flute since the shape of the glass helps preserve some of the carbonation. Is it worth it to take these extra steps for a gin and tonic? YES.

I'll be posting about some Harry Potter themed cocktails pretty soon that I made up a few months ago. Parents are in Japan right now and soon they will be in Zhongshan for about two weeks. Hopefully I can go next year with them when I have some vacation time. It will be 10 years since I last set foot in China. A lot has changed since then and I'm not sure what to make of it when I go back.