TRAVELING IN STYLE : Side Trips : Travel Classics

The Official Drink of Summer

Gin and tonics are imbibed all year long, but never more appreciatively than in summer, when the marriage of tonic’s bittersweet spritz and gin’s bracing botanicals (among them juniper, coriander, angelica root, bitter almonds and fennel) seem as quintessentially seasonal as seersucker or a veranda with an ocean view.

It’s unclear when gin and tonics first became popular in the United States, though they’ve been a summertime mainstay for decades--a 1949 bar menu from Chicago’s Pump Room prices them at 80 cents. The standard recipe calls for two ounces of gin over ice in a tall glass, topped with tonic water.

Both gin and tonic began, mundanely enough, as medicines. Gin was invented in Holland around 1650 by Franz de Boe, a physician and professor of medicine at the University of Leiden. Boe hoped that by distilling pure alcohol with juniper berries he could make a diuretic that would cure bladder and kidney problems. The resulting elixir was dubbed genievre , French for the Dutch word for juniper, genever or jenever.

Tonic, essentially slightly sweet carbonated water, also contains quinine, a bitter salt derived from cinchona bark once used to treat malaria. Not surprisingly, gin and tonic was the drink of the British raj.

According to Pump Room manager Scott Brooker, the correct way to serve the classic is to present a tiny decanter of gin, a bottle of tonic, a glass three-fourths full of fresh ice cubes and a wedge of lime, never lemon (as is sometimes done in the better first-class airliner cabins). Aficionados swear by British gin, considered lighter and smoother than Dutch or American.

Maritime cocktail tradition decrees that the G&T; may be enjoyed as soon as the sun crosses the ship’s yardarm. Which is usually amended to mean: Anytime you want. Cheers.

Dick Dales Free Advice for Boss Summer Travel

The Tahitians, when they traveled in their outriggers, they never thought theywere paddling to the next island, says the 57-year-old surf-guitar legend. Instead, they pictured that with every paddle, they were pulling the island to them. Thats bitchin.

style consultant: Arlene Hirst