The gin and tonic is a beautiful thing. Refreshing, anti-malarial, and fixable by even the least confident home bartenders. However, malaria rates are at an all-time low in the UK and over-reliance on old favourites is a sure-fire route to monotony and disenchantment. There’s a whole wide world of ways to knock back gin so why not give the tonic water a rest and try something different when 5pm rolls around? Gin Rickey American lobbyist ‘Colonel’ Joseph Rickey liked his rye whiskey and soda with a squeeze of lime for extra zip. He was an influential man in Washington DC and in the 1880s his signature drink became something of a phenomenon in the city’s bars. At the time, it wasn’t unusual to see variations made with brandy and Bourbon.