The Secret of a good Gin Tonic

If you are a Gin Tonic lover and want to learn how to prepare it like an expert, read carefully and follow the instructions. I tell you how to do it in five steps.

Ingredients must be cold

All the ingredients you are going to use to prepare your Gin Tonic must be cold: the glass, the gin and the tonic. The gins have a freezing point below -20ºc, so they can be left in the freezer without any problem, the tonic, must be around 5ºc. To cool the glasses you can put ice in the glass and turn it with an imperial spoon until the walls of the glass frost, then remove the water melted.

Perfect gin size setting

With the glass cold and full of ice up to the top, we'll introduce the gin. Make sure that 1/5 of our glass is gin and 4/5 is tonic. The measures can vary between 4 and 6cl, normally 5cl are introduced for a Gin Tonic. We will make a softer and shorter gin tonic for an aperitif than for an after-lunch chat.

Moderation with botanists

Botanicals are in fashion and many are used for cocktails: cardamom, star anise, cassia cinnamon, dried strawberry, orange blossom, ginger and a long etcetera. However, it is important not to use more than two botanicals per glass since botanicals are already used in the distillation of gin, and these can mask the real taste of the gin.

The importance of tonic

There are different theories on how to incorporate the tonic (incorporate it on a spoon, or directly on the ice, shaking the tonic...) but the best thing is to pour it gently to preserve the carbon dioxide gas of the tonic, preferably from the last ice.

Aromatize with a touch of citrus

Finally, it is important to flavour the gin and tonic very gently, adding very few extras, and always avoiding stumbling when drinking. It is enough to add a fresh and juicy citrus skin, which is perfect to flavour any gin and tonic. The citrus can be added at the beginning, before putting the gin, so that the glass is impregnated with the aroma, if you do it at the end, the aromatic oils will remain on the surface of the gin tonic.