Drinks » Gin & tonic

Ingredients:

• 2 or 3 oz London dry gin
• 1 healthy wedge of fresh lime
• 1 split of tonic water (about 6 oz)

Serve in Collins glass with 2 or 3 ice cubes.

"The tonic is a sparkling water containing one grain of quinine. Sounds terrible, but wait until you try it! It's the drink of the tropics from the Sailors' Bar at Cartagena to the cool verandah of the Myrtle Bank Hotel at Kingston, Jamaica, and Christophe's Citadel at Milot, Haiti." —Esquire's Handbook for Hosts, 1947.

Little did we know back then that the G & T would go on to single-handedly wipe out all the various Collinses, Fizzes, and Rickeys that formerly accounted for the bulk of summertime gin consumption.