Smoker’s Companion - Gin and Tonic

The drink that goes with smoking a cigar is sometimes as important as the actual cigar you choose. I find that coffee and espresso based drinks just taste better with a well paired cigar but as the day lingers into night my palate changes for something with more of an adult bite.

People, who know me best, know that my drink of choice is a good old fashioned Gin and Tonic (G&T). I used to drink ALOT of craft beer but I have been more of a liquor drinker over the past few years with G&Ts being my staple. I think this also comes from being an extremely frequent flier and my drink of choice at 30,000 feet also being a G&T. To be fair, I do drink my fair share of brown liquors which definitely pair with cigars better but I like G&Ts because I find them to be easier to down in the hot Florida weather. 

Over time, I will add thoughts on the various liquors I enjoy or come across while also writing post on some cocktails and provide the recipes and potential variations to improve your smoking experience. For this particular post, I am going to focus more on the drink recipe than the actual liquor selected. The basic G&T is extremely easy to make and should be refreshing regardless the time of year as many gins have moved away from the evergreen flavor and have focused on more citrus backings. For this particular G&T I used one of my favorite local to me gins from St. Augustine Distillery.  This particular gin is heavy on the orange aroma and flavors that makes G&Ts one of my stand by drinks.

The base recipe for this concoction is pretty simple, 2 parts tonic to 1 part gin and throw in some ice. Actually, start with the hand full of ice first..... Then add the tonic pouring it gentle to avoid overfilling. Once the glass is 2/3 full of tonic top of the rest with gin. Voila, G&T completed.

If you are feeling frisky, maybe throw in a lime wedge, an orange slice, or lemon slice. I am definitely not frisky; I am just more of a lazy. If I were trying to impress someone I would probablly use the lime or lemon first but some gins absolutely POP with an orange slice; I’ll leave it to you to experiment.

Another on of my favorites is to use diet tonic. I love saving calories for things that matter, like actual food and the addition of diet tonic water and a citrus slice practically makes a G&T a health drink.