You might think that making a great G and T is all about just chucking some gin and some tonic into a glass. Well you couldn’t be more wrong. Actually that isn’t fair. There is no such thing as a bad gin and tonic, it’s a marriage made in heaven after all. But this method will take your favourite tipple up a notch and mean that you can make it like a pro, and wow your guests in the process.
First of all you need a balloon glass. Forget those small tumblers that were all the rage in the 70s. You need a big balloon of a glass, with a stem, and with an opening big enough to stick your nose in. A huge percentage of what we taste is governed by what we smell (pinch your nose and chew on a piece of mint if you don’t believe me. You won’t taste a thing. Let go of your nose and you get a sudden hit of mint) so you need to get your nose in the glass when you drink. For that reason you are also banned from using straws to drink your G&T. Your nose is too far away from the glass and you won’t get all the flavours.
Next you need to add ice. Lots of it. Fill the glass. The more ice you have in the glass the better as this stops the ice melting, and diluting your drink. If you only put a couple of cubes in a glass they melt and you end up drinking water. So fill that glass, and if you can swirl them around until they spin. If you have a long bar spoon you can stir them. This is called “activating” the ice and it will get any water out of the ice that is ready to go, you can then strain this out, leaving you with ice that is ready to chill your drink.
Then you put the cheapest ingredients in first. In case you muck it up. So put in the lemon or lime wedges, sprig of mint, whatever you fancy, or your recipe dictates.
Then you add your gin. You really should measure it rather than free pour, so get yourself a jigger (so named as bar tenders called it thingamejig which then got shortened to jigger) and pour either a single or a double.
Then you fill the glass with your desired mixer, at a ratio of double the amount of mixer to gin.
No more.
Then if you want a garnish on the top, place it on the top of the bubbles.
And there you have it, your perfect G&T.
