Gin Rickey

The Gin Rickey is one of the simplest and driest of all classic highballs — gin lengthened with fresh lime juice and cold soda water, built tall over ice with the squeezed lime shell dropped into the glass, and carrying no sugar at all. It is the gin member of the Rickey family, a group of soda-and-lime coolers that grew up in Washington, D.C. in the 1880s. Clear, fizzy and bone-dry, it is a hot-weather refresher rather than a sweet sipper, all juniper, sharp lime and sparkling water. Its austerity is the point: with no sweetener to soften it, the drink reads crisp, tart and clean.