Vodka And Tonic: The Recipe
- 1 or 2 ounces of vodka
- Tonic water
- Ice
Place the ice in a highball glass, pour over the vodka and top up with tonic water. Simple, delightfully intoxicating, and usually served with a wedge of lemon. Alternately, go wild with a slice of lime.
Short of knocking it back straight or on the rocks, a vodka and tonic is pretty much the simplest way of drinking vodka. The classic recipe allows for a generous quantity of tonic water, taking the bite off the vodka and producing a long and refreshing drink. Seasoned drinkers who know what they want can, of course, add less or more tonic to suit.
Which Vodka?: A Brief Discussion
There is room for discussion when it comes to the specific brand of vodka. The connoisseur may well insist on Stolichnaya, or one of the more upmarket Smirnoff varieties - Smirnoff Black, for example. Alternately, the qualities of Absolut or Finlandia may be espoused. There is no doubt that all of these vodkas are superior liquors, and it is at this point that controversy arrives. By all means place a bottle of Stoli in the freezer, remove it on occasion and sip at its glacial, slow-moving coolness, admiring the icy sleeve that forms on the outside of the glass. Add ice, if you must, but refrain at all costs from diluting it with tonic.
Unlike a gin and tonic, in which the subtle flavours of the gin will shine through, making a choice of Bombay Sapphire or Plymouth an excellent decision, the addition of tonic water to vodka will simply mask all the subtlety of the vodka. In short, choose a quality vodka, for sure, but be mindful of waste.
Calorie Counting: What's The Damage?
Vodka, along with rum, gin, tequila and whisky, is carbohydrate free, a plus for the low-carb fans out there. The addition of diet tonic will undoubtedly bring a boozy grin to the faces of Doctor Atkin's followers everywhere.
Calorie-counting dieters, however, will be displeased to note that a vodka tonic has around 200 calories, though this can be cut to about a hundred calories if you use diet tonic. For the odd indulgence, it's probably not too bad, but a tipsy evening of five vodka tonics could leave you scowling at the scales next weigh-in.
Trivia Corner: An Amusement For The Easily Intrigued
Recently used in an experiment at Victoria University in New Zealand, vodka and tonic has shown that a major part of being drunk is thinking you're drunk. One hundred and forty-eight students were split into two groups, half of which were told they were getting vodka and tonic, the other half told they would simply be drinking tonic. In actual fact, everyone drank plain tonic.
Fed copious quantities of 'drink' and then asked to watch a sequence of slides depicting a crime, the students were questioned to check their awareness of what they had seen. Seema Assefi, psychologist, found that 'people who thought they were intoxicated made worse eyewitnesses than those who thought they were sober' and noted that some of the students even showed physical signs of intoxication. | 
