Vodka, built
Vodka & Tonic
Barline 2,t,HLw
The code is the shorthand off my printed menu; the Key tab decodes every letter.
- 2 oz Vodka
- top with Tonic water
Build in the glass over ice, then lift once with a barspoon.
Highball, iced, lime wheel.
Taste
Two ounces of vodka, then tonic to the top of an iced highball. With no juniper in the way the drink is the tonic itself: quinine bitter, a little sweet, cold and long. The lime wheel is a squeeze of oil and acid on the way in, and it is most of what you smell.
History
Vodka came up in America in the 1940s and 1950s on the back of the Moscow Mule and Smirnoff's advertising, and tonic was the obvious second mixer once gin had shown the way. In Britain it overtook the Gin and Tonic in the 1980s, helped along by television: Arthur Daley in Minder ordered a large V.A.T. often enough that the initials stuck. Difford's pours it long over ice with a lime wedge. This menu pours two ounces of vodka and tops with tonic over ice, lime wheel.
Same shape, other bottles
The Highball family, with the bottle that changed.
- Gin & Tonicgin for vodka
- Scotch and Sodascotch and soda water for vodka and tonic water
- Vodka Sodasoda water for tonic water
- Whiskey Highballbourbon and soda water for vodka and tonic water
- Campari & Tonicwith Campari
- Sherry & Tonicwith sherry
This is one drink on my home bar's menu. Tick the bottles you own and the menu lists which of all 185 drinks they pour.