Keep your bottle of gin in the fridge, not the freezer. Make your ice in little glass bowls; those metal and plastic ice trays are no good. Use good bottled water to make your ice. Break the ice into chunks using a sharp, pointed object, or a hammer if you have one handy.

Fill a heavy-bottomed glass with ice chunks, then pour in your chilled gin, filling the glass half way (more if you've had a bad day). Top the glass off with tonic water. Be careful when buying tonic water that it doesn't have any saccharin or, god forbid, aspartame in it. Make sure the tonic water is fresh, i.e. still has its fizz... buy tiny bottles of tonic water unless you're a full-blown alcoholic, in which case finishing a liter a day is a definite possibility.

Lastly drop a freshly cut slice or wedge of lemon or lime into the mix. Stir with something other than your finger. Wait thirty seconds and then drink. Restrain yourself from draining glass in one shot.

A great place to shop for bar accessories and glassware is tabletools.com. For bar tools I recommend WMF's products, German engineering at its finest. For glassware I recommend iittala, which is just beautiful stuff from Finland.

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