As we speak, it’s not unusual for a easy Gin & Tonic to boast a laundry checklist of components meant to raise the straightforward highball. Enhancing upon the tried-and-tested system whereas retaining the inherent simplicity of the unique, nevertheless, isn’t any simple activity.
Balancing that maximalist impulse with a minimalist construct, New York bartender Sarah Morrissey packs rosemary, juniper berries and a lime twist—elaborations that usually garnish Spanish-style variations of the drink—into a big frozen ice dice for her take. Additionally working with ice, Dan Sabo, director of meals and beverage at Los Angeles’ Fairmont Century Plaza, places an sudden twist on cucumber, a standard G&T garnish. Somewhat than floating slices of the vegetable within the drink, his G&T&C&R incorporates a cucumber juice ice dice that enables the drink to evolve over time and play off the cucumber notes that outline Hendrick’s Gin, his most popular model for this recipe.
Different takes add complexity by swapping or splitting the two-part recipe’s prescribed elements. On the now-closed New York cider bar Wassail, bartender Jade Sotack changed the standard tonic water with Spanish sidra and added an oz of tonic syrup, to recall the bubbling ingredient, in her Gin & Juice. Our home recipe, the Comfortable Shock, takes an identical method, decreasing the proof by splitting the bottom between gin and fino sherry, and kicking up the aromatics with a dose of each lime and mint.
Chaim Dauermann, of New York Metropolis’s The Up & Up, in the meantime, focuses on the attribute bitterness of the cocktail, which he achieves by including a measure of Suze, an natural French liqueur, to his Insanely Good Gin & Tonic.
Lastly, probably the most unorthodox take—which was additionally the winner of Punch’s blind tasting of recipes—is Toby Cecchini’s Gin & Tonic. In his recipe, julienned lime skins are muddled with gin till “the fragrant oil has clearly emerged and the entire has taken on a translucent inexperienced from the juice.” When the gin-lime combination is floated atop tonic water, the lime strips finally act as a garnish. Regardless of its unconventional look and construct, the additional steps are price it, with the outcome described by the tasting panel as “crisp, brilliant and deeply flavorful.”
