13 Recipes to Elevate Your Beloved Gin & Tonic

The low-acid calamansi and finger lime make for an elegant take on the G&T.

One of the first drinks ever created by Eat Your Drink: Culinary Cocktails author Matthew Biancello, this cocktail features muddled arugula that gives gin a grassy taste. It pairs well with food, Biancello says, especially meat.

This ode-to-Sonoma spritz combines Benham’s Gin and Long Meadow Ranch Brut Farmstead, both made in Sonoma County. Think of this collins sipper as an upgraded gin and tonic—one heavy on the lemon and mint, with just enough dry sparkling wine to top it off and a dose of sweetness from the simple syrup.

Cassie Winslow, founder of the blog Deco Tartelette and the author of Floral Libations, shares her fruity and floral take on the gin and tonic. Her use of plums, both in the drink and as garnish, and rose water create a true taste of rose.

In flashy Las Vegas, you’d expect nothing less than a color-changing cocktail. The floral, tropical drink is a specialty at The Cosmopolitan casino bar The Chandelier. “The drink features Empress Indigo Gin, infused with the butterfly pea flower, which gives it a vibrant color,” says mixologist Mariena Mercer Boarini. “When it’s mixed with citrus it changes to purple, then pink. It’s science, folks!”

Chill all the ingredients before mixing, since this gently fizzy cocktail is meant to be served straight up. It’s named for the purplish skies over the coastal town of Inverness in Northern California. Pomegranate juice, rosé, and rosemary springs mixed together create a beautiful, floral flavor.

In this drink, gin is infused with the savory freshness of basil and thyme. A break from flowery gin cocktails, this drink offers a more refreshing feel. The basil and thyme leaves add strong flavors to the gin, alongside a bit of basil-thyme simple syrup.

Rosemary-infused gin elevates a gin and tonic by Kelso Norris, the cocktail director at Genever in Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown. Using very few ingredients, Norris successfully upgrades the G&T simply with the addition of grapefruit juice and rosemary-infused gin.

Rather than the rosemary gin Norris uses in the previous cocktail, this recipe utilizes lemongrass gin. “The smell of lemongrass is incredibly soothing and invigorating to me,” Norris says. “It plays well with other flavors.”

Malibu honey and Amass gin from Los Angeles star in the Malibu Surfrider Hotel’s take on the Bee’s Knees. The lavender-honey syrup included in this recipe adds just enough sweetness to make this drink outstanding.

This variation on the crisp and effervescent French 75 Champagne cocktail gets its blush hue from the simple addition of pomegranate molasses. The use of orange flower water takes this cocktail to the next level.

Using Carpano Antica Formula vermouth, this drink is one of the highest quality. Its sweetness is topped off with an orange twist as garnish. Cabana X serves this as a nod to its sister bar, Denver’s Bar Helix.

This gin and tonic offers a citrus-forward twist on the cocktail. The tropical aroma of Kaffir lime leaves from Thailand is perfect for a summer sunset.