Gin-and-Ice, No Lime

Ever tried drinking gin by itself, no lime or tonic? If you haven’t, don’t. It’s sheer hell. Burns the gullet on the way down, then on the way up, and makes you a confirmed hater of men in general and the server of the drink in particular.

I’ll have a fresh lime soda sir, said he. You can have something stronger you know, replied my father. A gin, sir, a gin will be just fine. With….? My father asked, finishing his talk quota for the next one week plus. Plain, sir, I’ll have it plain. Maybe some ice, he added bleakly in response to my father’s raised eyebrows.

Gin-and-ice without lime was what he nursed through the evening while others looked at him strangely and later advised me not to marry a man who did not know how and what to drink. Gin-and-ice without lime was what ruined his dinner for him that night. Gin-and-ice without lime was what put him off cocktails for the rest of his life. Gin-and-ice without lime was what made him almost decide not to marry the daughter of a man who frightened him into asking for the foulest drink in creation. And gin-and-ice without lime was what he promised to offer his to-be-son-in-law when he came around trying to steal his daughter from him. Pity he did not live to fulfil his dreams – that of turning from scared and nervous suitor into the forbidding father – not that today’s youngsters are likely to get derailed by anything we say or do. Maybe I will live out this particular dream for him when my daughter brings home a beau. Have to test the mettle of whichever hoodlum my daughter decides to spend her life with.