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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!
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...
