The Perfect Gin and Tonic: Recipe

Whenever I'm on vacation at the beach, it is a personal rule of mine to drink exactly one gin and tonic every day.

It's 100 percent vegetarian, 100 percent vegan, 100 percent cruelty free. The quinine in the tonic helps to protect you from malaria, so it's also totally healthy.

One secret to making a good gin and tonic: a small glass. A gin and tonic should be a small, sipping drink in my opinion, along the lines of a martini. This may shock you, but I think it should be almost--but not quite--equal parts gin and tonic. Too much tonic and you'll feel like puking, which will defeat the purpose of feeling nice and having a good time.

I recommend having your gin and tonic at the beach at cocktail hour, 6 pm exactly if you can't wait, but if you can wait, it's really great at sunset.

After your gin and tonic, move on to something else. As I said, too much gin or too much tonic is a bad way to go. If you're a teetotaller, let it stand at that, but if you like, move on to something completely different: red wine if you're having dinner, vodka and soda, beer, bourbon and branch water or what-have-you, your one drink of choice which you should stick to throughout the actual evening.

I also recommend buying the tonic in the tiny glass bottles. It's way expensive, but worth it. Nothing's worse than flat tonic, and it's sure to go flat if it's in those cheesey giant 2-liter plastic bottles.

A high-quality gin is very important. Don't try to cut corners and save money here either. Tanqueray is my personal fave, but there are a lot of good brands out there. Top shelf, baby.

This recipe also calls for bitters. (I use Angostura bitters, which you can buy at any grocery store, even on Sunday, even in dry counties). It makes the G&T spicy rather than sweet, and turns it this really light, pretty, intriguing shade of very subtle pink.

Lime, not lemon. That's an order.

The Perfect Gin and Tonic

1 shot (1 1/2 ounces) high-quality gin
Very cold tonic water
One dash of bitters
Lime
A lot of good ice

1. Fill a small glass with ice. I mean fill it to the top. Shake it around so you can fit more ice in there. Lots of ice.

2. Pour a shot of gin into the glass.

3. Put in a dash of bitters.

4. Fill the rest of the glass with tonic.

5. Squeeze a bit of lime juice into the glass. (It's a weird pet-peeve of mine, but I don't like to drop the actual lime piece into the drink. I mean, the skin is probably covered in pesticides and horrible germs from when the rat walked on it when it was sitting in a warehouse and all. But normal people probably won't mind. It looks very pretty, too, floating in the drink, especially if you cut it into little rounds like in the picture.)

6. Fill the remainder of your (small) glass with a bit of tonic water.

7. Stir very well, but gently so as not to flatten the tonic.

8. Head to the beach/deck/porch where you can watch the sunset with lovely drink in hand.