There is nothing better than reclining on my porch after work with my favorite summer cocktail. In Portland, it's a little cloudy, but I look forward with hope to the next sunny cocktail day.

1 generous shot of New Deal Vodka (a Portland original)

2 parts cranberry juice

1 part club soda

Dash of Rose's lime juice

served on the rocks with a little lime twist...

Thanks!

Maybe it's a little plebian but I love vodka tonics with a little lemon juice and mint. Especially with a GOOD vodka like Imperia.

Or, if you can forgeo the liquor, opt instead for a Chenin Blanc. There are some great really refreshing South African ones coming out. 2005 was a good year in both South Africa and the Loire Valley.

All I can say is you're using the wrong gin! Anyone who considers a G&T made with Bombay Saphire a snooze not only has no tastebuds, they have no soul!

A long time ago apple schnapps had a (thankfully) brief popularity. I bought a bottle and it was terrible - much too sweet.

Not wanting to waste it I came up with this and it has proven popular with my guests. I started with the fact that apple and grape go well together.

In a tall glass put some ice and squeeze a wedge of lime in it. Add a jigger of apple schnapps and fill the glass with champagne or riesling. Garnish with the above lime wedge. Stir and serve

Only a month left for the summer drinks, then you switch to Manhattans.

Sometimes grownups like things that don't taste like kool-aid, and that's when they have a gin and tonic. Besides, it's the only thing that helps when my malaria starts to act up.

One dignified alternative to the G&T is the Pimm's Cup. Pimm's, lemonade, a little lemon-lime soda for the bubbles, garnish with a slice of cucumber.

The G&T, properly done, *is* the ultimate summer drink.

However, the penultimate has seven essential qualities.

1. It must be easy to make. Slogging through the torpor of a late August afternoon while trying to make a frangelico mojito sour strained through contraband foie gras and lightly sprinkled with Aztec masa and a mizuna sprig is eliminated on these grounds (among others).

2. It must be easy to remember. It is still summer time and we will be serving more than one, won't we?

3. It must be refreshing, neither too bitter nor too sweet nor too powerful (See #1 & #2 above), and can be enjoyed with activity or at leisure.

4. It must be highly adaptable. Like summer itself, it must be many things to many people - a little splashy but not ostentatious, sexy and sophisticated yet easy going, even a little preppy with a hint of showing off.

5. It must have the cachet of the old yet be surprisingly new.

6. In the season when most people finally find time for books, it must have literary overtones.

7. Did I mention it must be as easy to remember as it is to make?

Therefore, the penultimate summer cocktail is the favorite of Graham Greene, as well that of Thomas Fowler, the anti-hero of Greene's novel The Quiet American, an instructional little book for our times. I give you: the Vermouth Cassis.

Fill a glass with ice.

Add 3 oz of dry vermouth (Noilly Prat)

Add 1 oz of crème de cassis (Bols)

Top off with club soda

Repeat...

Keep a bottle of Limoncello in the freezer. Keep Absolute Raspberry beside it. Mix one part each in a chilled glass. Add a squirt of soda if you must. Add the obvious garnishes. Then just relax and chill.

I came up with this tasty little concoction one particularly warm evening on Virgin Gorda, The British Virgin Islands, at our place on the Little Dix Bay Resort. Everybody loved it! You may want to play around with the proportions, but, it tastes great however you mix it!

"Virgin's Downfall"

In a cocktail shaker, add:

2 ounces Amaretto Di Saronno liqueur

4 ounces "Lotus" brand Puerto Rican pineapple juice (or any deep-yellow and very fragrant pineapple juice.)

1 tsp. red Maraschino cherry syrup

1 cup crushed ice

Cover shaker and shake vigorously for about 10 seconds.

Add 1 ounce of ginger ale and stir gently with a swizzle stick to blend.

Pour (a) strained, in a martini-style glass, or, (b) with the rocks in a highball glass.

Garnish with a fresh pineapple spear, a Maraschino cherry and a small sprig of fresh mint.

Drink, enjoy, repeat!

Frozen Neon Citron

2 shots lemon vodka

1 oz Midori Melon

1/2 oz hpnotic

juice from 1 lime.

Place in blender filled with ice and whip.

Rum Cosmo Freeze

2 shots Bacardi O

2 shots Cranberry juice

Juice frm 1 lime

Place in blender filled w/ ice and whip.

vodka, cranberry juice, slice of lime and splash of soda

I like Tom Collins in the summer (and the winter. Sring and fall are good to). I'm probably the only Gen Xer who drinks them, but I don't care.

Gin (good gin, and not vodka. ever.)

Lemon juice

a touch of sugar

club soda

You can mix with crushed ice to make a smoothie texture, but usually that's too much work.

Do not use disgusting "sour mix."

Marachino cherry or slice of orange is optional, but hardly necessary (and often not even desirable).

cemeteryman has it right with hendricks gin. try this recipe:

1. fill glass with ice

2. add hendricks gin until glass is half full

3. use regular tonic water to fill remainder of glass

4. garnish with cucumber (compliments hendricks very well)

I have to agree with everyone else about G&T, it's a classic for a reason. The key is proportion as with all drinks. However, I've been drinking what I've taken to calling a Block Island due to a long weekend of these made on said island:

Fill your glass 2/3 with ice and add:

Slightly less than 1/3 Mandarin Vodka (see the note below about the vodka)

A large splash of regular vodka (the better the vodka the better the drink)

1/3 Soda water, seltzer can be used as well, but not tonic.

Fill the rest of the glass with mango nectar (make sure it's nectar not juice, Goya mango nectar is available in most groceries in the international aisle.) OJ can be used in a pinch, but it's not quite the same and a bit too sweet.

Garnish with a slice of lemon.

Drink & Repeat.

It's very smooth, not too sweet and not too bitter, plus it has the benefit of being able to be made by the pitcher etc...