9 Best Gin Cocktails for Summer, From the French 75 to the Bees Knees
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There was a time, not even that long ago, when bartenders had to convince people to try gin. Fortunately for everybody, that time is over.
Not that it was ever that hard. A gin enthusiast could give an impassioned pro-gin polemic if they really wanted to—a long list of indispensable gin cocktails, perhaps, or an exploration of the spirit’s tremendous versatility—but as far as agents of persuasion go, a single sip of an Eastside Rickey is sufficient to win a gin convert for life.
A great cocktail spirit needs to be two things: First, it must elevate the other ingredients and provide the structure for them to express their best selves, and second, it needs to be not so delicious or expensive on its own that using it in a cocktail is seen as a waste. By those criteria, gin is the best cocktail spirit we have. It is dynamic and expressive, idiosyncratic but not a diva, interesting enough on its own but becomes spectacular when mixed. Gin is perfectly comfortable being the center of attention in something like the Tuxedo, but it’s also very happy, as with the Corpse Reviver No. 2, to be the stage on which others sing their songs.
Whether it’s the bracing and seductive Arsenic and Old Lace or the bright and charming French 75, here are seven gin drinks to fall in love with the spirit all over again.
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Fort Tilden Cooler
Image Credit: ilkermetinkursova/Getty Images Bartender Andrew Rice of N.Y.C.’s Attaboy took the template of a Tom Collins—gin, lemon juice, sugar, and soda, itself foundationally refreshing and the original summer banger—and twisted it in two delicious ways. The first was replacing half the gin with fino sherry, the delicate, slightly nutty fortified wine from Spain, which has the dual benefits of lowering the proof and adding a subtle complexity. To complement this, Rice also spiced the whole thing with a dash of absinthe, whose botanical intensity compensates for the sherry’s relative lack of weight. What all of this means together is that the Fort Tilden Cooler is an ice cold and viscerally refreshing charmer, a low-ABV drink that doesn’t taste low-ABV so much as it just tastes crushable.
- 1 oz. gin
- 1 oz. fino or manzanilla Sherry
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. simple syrup
- 2-3 dashes absinthe
- 2-3 oz. soda water
Add all liquids except for the soda water to a cocktail shaker with ice. Seal and shake hard for eight to 10 seconds. Strain over fresh ice into a collins glass, top with soda, and garnish with a grapefruit peel.
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Eastside Rickey
Image Credit: Carlo Alberto Orecchia Sometimes all you want is a vodka soda and that’s great. But there are times when you get stuck in a rut, and that can be true of vodka drinkers who don’t wish to move outside of that comfort zone. But there’s a sure-fire gin cocktail that can shake off the hesitancy over trying a new drink and it’s the Eastside Rickey. The gin, lime, cucumber, and mint cocktail is about as refreshing of an ingredient combination you can find—add to that some soda water for effervescence, and you may never want to go back to your vodka soda again.
- 2 oz. London dry gin (Beefeater is ideal)
- 0.75 oz. lime juice
- 0.75 oz. simple syrup (1:1)
- 3 slices of cucumber
- 6-8 mint leaves
- 3-4 oz. soda water
Muddle cucumber and mint in the bottom of a shaker tin. Add liquid ingredients and ice, seal and shake hard. Strain into a tall glass over fresh ice and top with soda water, and garnish with a mint crown stuck through the middle of a cucumber coin.
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Bronx
Image Credit: Wirestock/iStock/Getty Images Plus The Bronx is a maligned cocktail. The original recipe does indeed make a pretty bad drink and a survey of available recipes, when people give it the time of day at all, shows that everyone is basically seeing how much they can tweak it and still call it a Bronx. The classic Bronx is a full pour of gin, and about half that much of sweet vermouth, dry vermouth, and orange juice. But I believe there’s greatness in there that just needs to be coaxed out, which I think happens with the recipe below. Make it right and the Bronx is bright and refreshing, juicy and exuberant, a little liquid sunshine with just enough herbal complexity to make it grown up. It’s the perfect cocktail for the type of weather for which biting into a fresh orange just seems like a great idea, and good enough, at absolute minimum, to recommend without insulting it in the same breath.
- 2 oz. gin
- 0.25 oz. sweet vermouth
- 0.25 oz. dry vermouth
- 1.25 oz. fresh orange juice
- 1-2 dashes orange bitters, optional
Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker and shake on ice for eight to 10 seconds. Strain into a cocktail glass or coupe, and garnish with an orange peel.
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French 75
Image Credit: bhofack2/Getty Images The French 75 pulls off a neat little two-step. The cocktail—gin and lemon juice, electrified with champagne—is equally at home in enthusiastic toasts on New Years Eve as it is deployed into eager hands on a normal Sunday brunch. Wherever you see it, you find it attending celebrations of the sweeter things in life. Not bad for a drink named after a World War I field cannon. Find out more about the three main variations here, or just make our favorite, below.
- 1 oz. Beefeater Gin
- 0.5 oz. lemon juice
- 0.5 oz. simple syrup (1:1)
- 3 oz. Champagne (real, French Champagne)
Shake first three ingredients over ice. Strain into a chilled flute, and top with about 3 oz. of chilled Champagne.
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Clover Club
Image Credit: Viennetta/iStock/Getty Images Plus “You could spend weeks drinking nothing but different tasty gin sour variations,” we write, “but personally, I don’t know if you could do better than the Clover Club.” Throughout its 120 year history the Clover Club—a gin sour, tarted up with fresh raspberries and smoothed out with an egg white—has been celebrated, then dismissed, then forgotten, and now, finally, is back on top. Find out what it has to do with Oscar Wilde here, or just do what William Butler Yeats did upon discovering it and make three of them all for yourself by the recipe below:
- 2 oz. Hendrick’s Gin
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. simple syrup
- 3-5 fresh raspberries
- 1 egg white
Add all ingredients to a shaker tin. “Dry” shake ingredients without ice for five seconds to whip the egg. Add ice, seal tins and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain into coupe or martini glass, express a lemon peel over the top of the foam for aroma and discard and garnish with one to three raspberries, on a pick.
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Martini
Image Credit: Rick Barrett/Ambitious Studio/Unsplash James Bond has attempted to convince us that the Martini is a vodka drink, but the word “Martini” exclusively referred to a mixture of gin and vermouth for the first half of its life. And while vodka Martinis can be charming all their own, we write that “the aromatic complexities of gin and vermouth lock into each other like a vacuum seal, and render the cocktail’s 130-year dominance immediately clear.” We include the most straightforward variation below, but you can also see read two other variations on the Martini.
- 2.25 oz. Tanqueray 10 or Aviation Gin
- 0.75 oz. Dolin Dry Vermouth
Add ingredients to a mixing glass with ice. Stir well for 10 seconds (if using small ice) to 25 seconds (if using very large ice), strain into a cocktail or Martini glass, and garnish with a lemon peel.
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Bee’s Knees
Image Credit: Rimma Bondarenko/iStock/Getty Images Plus The Bee’s Knees—gin, lemon, and honey—is a simple drink with a rich backstory. It was invented in the Roaring ’20s in Paris by none other than “Unsinkable” Molly Brown, the woman who survived the Titanic sinking and went on to become a leading progressive activist, suffragette, and, eventually, a bon vivant in Paris. We show you how to make the classic below, but the Bee’s Knees is a great starting point for endless variations.
- 2 oz. gin
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.75 oz. honey syrup (to taste)
Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice, shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds and strain off the ice into a coupe or Martini glass. Garnish with a lemon peel, a lemon wheel or even nothing at all.
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Bramble
Image Credit: Daniel Viero/iStock/Getty Images Plus The Bramble is a vibe. “As the days get longer and the sun gains strength,” we wrote around this time last year, “cocktails like the Bramble float back into our minds, as if compelled by the season.” English bartending legend Dick Bradsell invented this charmer back in the 1980s, inspired, he would later explain, “by the fresh blackberries I used to get on the Isle of Wight.” Tart, bright, and fresh, this is essentially a gin sour with a plush kiss of blackberry liqueur, made extra refreshing by crushed ice.
- 2 oz. gin
- 0.75 oz. lemon juice
- 0.5 oz. simple syrup
- 0.375-0.5 oz. crème de mûre, to taste
Add gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup to a shaker with a handful of crushed ice. Shake briefly to aerate and incorporate the ingredients, then dump contents into a rocks glass. Top with more crushed ice, then drizzle the crème de mûre on top. Garnish with a lemon slice and a blackberry.
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Arsenic and Old Lace
Image Credit: Wirestock/iStock/Getty Images Plus This variation on the Martini, named for a stage production that came out in 1941, highlights the incredible versatility of gin. The Arsenic and Old Lace is what would happen if you took the resonant clarity of a Martini, and gave it, as we write, “a floral punch from creme de violette and a piquant zing of absinthe.” These two accent marks—a quarter and an eighth of an ounce, respectively—utterly change the character of the drink.
- 2 oz. gin
- 0.75 oz. dry vermouth
- 0.25 oz. creme de violette
- 0.125 oz. (barspoon) absinthe
Add all ingredients to a mixing glass with ice. Stir well for 10 seconds (if using small ice) to 25 seconds (if using very large ice), strain into a cocktail glass or coupe, and garnish with a lemon peel.
