Gin and Tonic

Could it be the greatest drink ever invented? Maybe. I have a hard time taking a definative stand on this sort of thing because I always have the nagging (and perhaps unreasonable) fear that as soon as I do, someone is going to show up with a drink never before seen outside the Austrailian outback, the African veldt or the infamous penquin bars of the ancient Antarctican Ice Palaces, that blows me away. But until that person shows up, the Gin and Tonic remains King of potent potables.

My disclaimer here is that I'm talking mixed drinks, which includes everything that's not scotch. Scotch is the only thing that could challenge the G&T for the title of Joe Kreuser's Ultimate Drink, and if you told me I was going to a desert island and had to choose one to take with me, I'd have to knock you out with a cricket bat and take them both. But this isn't about Scotch (I'll talk about that some other time). It's about Gin. And Tonic, I suppose. And, as I would be forced to futher concede if pressed, Limes.

The first time I drank Gin was during my junior year at Carleton. Caleb and I went to a birthday party for a girl who had been a freshman on our floor the year before, and they had a bottle of rather noxious Gin there, because she had never had any before and wanted to try some. We both tried some (I can't really remember how it was served, it's possible we drank it straight), and were slightly underwhelmed, in the sense that we nearly swore it off entirely. It both smelled and tasted unpleasantly like pine sap. To this day I strongly recommend against drinking straight Gin, unless served extremely cold in a cone-shaped glass and accompanied by some amount of vermouth and either an olive or (preferably) a pearl onion. Ahh, the martini. It put in a good showing, but remains the runner-up in the Joe Kreuser's Ultimate Drink race. But this isn't about martinis. It's about all that stuff I mentioned before.

I came back to Gin, and to the Gin and Tonic, largely because of the special place they held for one of my favorite authors, Douglas Noel Adams. If you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy arc, you have run across the passage which informs the reader that every sentient race in the galaxy has a drink whose name is phonetically identical to the Gin and Tonic, which can range from water at slightly above room temperature to a liquid that can kill the ravenous bugblatter beast of Traal at 30 paces. One gets the feeling that, even with the infinite iterations of the universe at his fingertips, Adams would not have strayed from Earth's version of the drink. Adams would later write (in an essay included in The Salmon of Doubt, a posthumous collection of his work) that the Gin and Tonic was the only drink he could consume at will without suffering ill effects. Adams' affinity for the drink gave it an automatic plus, and though I cannot remember the first time I tasted one, it clearly was not enough to put me off of them forever. Over the past couple years it has quickly become my default drink, something I can order if I am at a loss in a bar, something that I will almost certainly possess the requisite ingredients for at home. I honestly can't say exactly what it is about it that makes it so good. The balance, I suppose, between the distinctive nature of the Gin, the carbonation of the Tonic and the lime thrown in for flavor. As with so many things in life, it transcends exact terms and can only be communicated through common understanding. I enjoy many forms of alcohol, and they all have different personalities, created by my history with them and the associated memories. The Gin and Tonic is the most comfortable and familiar, which is perhaps why I keep coming back to it.