Mid-October can't make up its mind. The mornings want a jacket. By three in the afternoon the jacket is hanging on the back of a chair.

That's the right week for a drink most people put away with the patio furniture.

International Gin & Tonic Day is Monday, October 19, and it's been on the calendar since 2010. So this week we're making the gin and tonic the way Spain makes it. A big round glass packed with ice, a real pour of gin, cold tonic, and a garnish you can smell before you sip. Rosemary, juniper, and a wide strip of lemon peel.

In this week's newsletter:

Answer at the bottom of the newsletter

The Spanish Gin Tonic

A gin and tonic built in a balloon glass with plenty of ice and an herb garnish. Colder, more fragrant, and slower to go flat than the tall highball version.

Ingredients

Directions

Why It Works
The Spanish version, called a gintonic, showed up in the early 2000s as an after hours drink for Michelin-starred chefs in Catalonia and the Basque Country. It spread beyond Spain after food writer Rafael García Santos wrote about what chefs from El Bulli and Arzak were drinking at his yearly gatherings in San Sebastián. The balloon glass was about convenience. A fine dining kitchen had wine glasses on the shelf, not tall highballs (the story is here).

The glass turns out to help. A wide bowl holds more ice, and more ice melts slower, so the drink stays cold without going watery. The bowl also holds the smell of the rosemary and lemon right where your nose goes. Pour the tonic down a spoon instead of dumping it in, because every bubble you knock loose in the pour is one you won't taste. Use a London dry gin with plenty of juniper. A soft, floral gin disappears under five ounces of tonic.

Tonic is more than two thirds of this drink, so it decides more than the gin does. Tonic water is carbonated water with sugar and quinine, the bitter compound from the bark of the cinchona tree. The first commercial tonic water was sold in 1858 (the record is here).

How to pick one:

The template underneath:

Spirit, a bitter mixer, a glass full of ice, and a garnish you can smell. That's the gintonic, and the ratio runs about 1 part spirit to 2 or 3 parts tonic. Swap the gin for white port and you have one of this week's bonus drinks. Change the garnish with the season. Rosemary and juniper now. Cucumber and mint in July. A cinnamon stick and an orange peel once it's properly cold.

Two more this week, both tall and fizzy. One tequila, one fortified wine, and no gin in either.

Tequila, lime, a pinch of salt, and grapefruit soda. Two minutes, one glass, no shaker.

Ingredients

Directions

Add the tequila, lime juice, and salt to a highball glass. Fill with ice. Top with the grapefruit soda and stir once, gently. Garnish with a lime wheel.

Why it works
Nobody knows who made the first one. The story you'll see most often credits Don Javier Corona of La Capilla in the town of Tequila, and he has denied inventing it. The other common citation, a pamphlet called Popular Cocktails of the Rio Grande, appears never to have existed. One drinks historian's best guess is that the Paloma came after Squirt grapefruit soda reached Mexico in the mid 1950s (the full trail is here). The pinch of salt is the part people skip, and it makes the grapefruit taste brighter instead of sweeter. Use 100 percent agave tequila. Cheaper mixto tequila tastes harsh once the soda fades.

Dry white port and tonic over ice. Lower proof than a gin and tonic, a little nutty, and made for a long afternoon.

Ingredients

Directions

Fill a wine glass or a highball glass with ice. Add the white port. Top with the tonic, poured slowly. Squeeze in the lemon wedge, or slap the mint between your palms and tuck it in.

Why it works
In Portugal it's called a Porto Tónico, and nobody can say where it started. Wine writers call it fairly new, and one bar pro suspects it caught on because both bottles were easy to find (the background is here). The ratio is two parts tonic to one part port. Port is wine fortified with grape brandy, so it sits around 20 percent alcohol, about half the strength of gin. Buy a dry white port, not a sweet one, or the drink turns syrupy. Keep the bottle in the fridge once it's open. It's wine, and it fades.

Same glass, same ice, same rosemary. A quick juniper tea stands in for the gin.

Ingredients

Directions

For the tea, crack 1 tablespoon of juniper berries with the flat of a knife, add a sprig of rosemary, and pour 4 oz of freshly boiled water over them. Steep for 10 minutes, strain, and chill.

Fill a balloon glass with ice. Add the cooled tea. Twist the lemon peel over the glass and drop it in. Pour the tonic slowly down a bar spoon. Garnish with the rosemary and a few juniper berries.

Juniper is the flavor that makes gin taste like gin, so a juniper tea gets you closer than you'd expect. Steeping pulls out the piney, resinous side of the berries with no alcohol involved. Let the tea cool all the way, because warm tea melts the ice and knocks the bubbles out of the tonic.