Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Just So Story!

You're a better drinker than I am ...

It’s just as refreshing as it looks.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. It’s still Indian Summer here in Ohio, and I’m in the mood for something refreshing. How about an upgrade to the classic gin and tonic? Adding a classic Indian spice to the mix makes this beloved one-and-one something special. Time for a Just So Story. Here’s the recipe.

Just So Story

2 oz Bombay Sapphire Gin

1 oz lime cardamon syrup

¾ oz lime juice

Fevertree tonic water

Shake the gin, lime, and syrup in an iced cocktail shaker. Pour over ice into a Collins glass. Add tonic water to fill the glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Lime Cardamon Syrup

6 cardamon pods, crushed

1 long strip lime zest, 2-3”

1 cup sugar

½ cup water

Place all ingredients in a small saucepan. Simmer over low heat for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain into a sealable bottle. Keeps 1-2 months in the fridge.

This cocktail was inspired by the Gunga Din, a modern tiki cocktail that was created by St. John Frizell at Fort Defiance in NYC. Fort Defiance closed in 2023, but Mr. Frizell is still active in the industry. The notion of a gin and tonic with a tiki twist definitely had my attention. I really do like gin and tonics as easy one-and-one cocktails. I’ve made them by the pitcher for vacation outings in the past; they’re easily one of the most refreshing drinks imaginable.

The gin and tonic is the most British cocktail ever, hands down. During the Raj, quinine was prescribed to ward off malaria. Her Majesty’s Finest, finding said quinine too bitter to consume alone, added soda, sugar, and gin. The G&T remains as the model for every one-and-one cocktail ever written, from the Dark and Stormy to the Cuba Libre. It is worth noting that chloroquine will not ward off COVID, autism, or other modern ailments. Greg from How To Drink posted a heroic video explaining all this in the depths of quarantine, and I will never fail to thank him for it.

I had some quibbles with St. John’s recipe. Mr. Frizell muddled cardamom pods into the gin to build the Gunga Din. I really hate muddling. Muddling a dry ingredient like cardamom pods seems particularly wasteful. There’s no oil to speak of in a cardamom pod, unlike mint leaves in a mojito. Simmering the cardamom in a syrup seemed like a much better way to release the flavor and incorporate it into the drink. It’s prep time and an extra bottle in the reach-in at the bar, but for the home bartender, it works wonderfully. Adding some lime zest to the syrup to bring more citrus flavor to the drink without increasing acidity seemed like a good idea as well.

St. John also added pineapple juice to the Gunga Din, which seemed like a huge mistake. Cardamom is a fairly subtle flavor, not dissimilar to vanilla. If you’ve ever had gulab jamun at an Indian restaurant, you’d recognize the taste of this syrup instantly. Pineapple is notorious for stomping all over subtle flavors in a cocktail. Classic tiki cocktails like the Zombie avoid pineapple juice. I’m not at all convinced that adding pineapple juice to a gin and tonic would make it better in any meaningful way. I decided to keep the focus on the “gin and tonic riff” concept of this drink and omit the pineapple.

With two changes to the cocktail, a change to the name of the drink was warranted. I decided to call it the Just So Story, after the book by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling, the gin and tonic, and the British Raj are all so tightly woven together that it’s impossible to separate them all. Kipling wasn’t a perfect person, and British history in Asia was even less so. But I’m pleased to report that the gin and tonic is close to a perfect drink, and these small additions make it even more so.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. The cocktail disappeared mysteriously shortly after this photo was taken.

Bombay Sapphire Gin: A classic British dry gin is a must here. Don’t use Hendricks; it’s a lovely gin, but it would get lost in the flavors of this glass. You want something crisp and bright to stand up to the sugar and cardamom.

Lime Cardamom Syrup: Crack the cardamom pods open before simmering them in the syrup; they’ll release a lot more flavor. The syrup is obviously sweet, but it also provides thickness and body to the drink that a G&T often lacks.

Lime Juice: Always use fresh. Plastic lime bottles provide plastic juice.

Fevertree Tonic Water: This cocktail demands the best tonic water you can get your hands on. Fevertree is always excellent. A properly bitter tonic water will keep the cardamom syrup from becoming cloying in the glass.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by and I’ll make a drink for you … or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette.

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