Gin is not our drink, although we have a grudging respect for it.
   We know some consider it heretical, but we prefer vodka in our martinis. Vodka can be a cold brute, but he lacks gin's sneakiness and guile -- he doesn't wear perfume or pretend to noble birth, he does his work noiselessly and with a humility that keeps him honest. Gin seems flightier -- a less loyal servant.
   But if we were to restrict ourselves to our drinks, we wouldn't go very far from bourbon, rye and the blood of the grape. It has been two years since we talked about gin in this space, a decent interval in which some may have just come on board (and others forgotten what we'd said about gin's ignoble background as the world's first urban street drug).
   Oh, we kid -- we kid. Gin is all right, as long as it keeps to its place. We like a gin and tonic in the sun every now and then. The Afterthought, or its adjacent restaurant, the evocatively named Vieux Carre, is a good place to order a Gibson -- which is identical to the (gin) martini in every way except that it takes an onion rather than an olive. And we won't refuse a Vesper (made of gin, vodka, blond Lillet and a twist of lemon, it's named for the only woman James Bond ever mourned, played by Ursula Andress in the 1967 film version of Casino Royale and by Eva Green in the version to be released in November).
   But we keep bottles of Hendrick's (an exquisitely quirky gin with hints of cucumbers and rose petals) and Martin Miller's (a smoother beverage with floral and citrus notes) in the house mainly for our hoitytoity guests.
   Part of this reluctance to make friends with gin stems from our perception of it as a beverage that requires careful preparation. Gin is for cocktails, mostly, although I guess there are those who sip it straight, which seems no more outrageous than mixing it with juice a la Snoop Dogg. It's just that we have little patience for mixing our own fizzes and rickeys and abbeys and monzus -- these drinks may be venerable, but these days they seem more like final exam questions for wouldbe bartenders. Dale DeGroff, the country's foremost bartender and one of the founders of the Museum of the American Cocktail, says he uses the Negroni as a litmus test -- if the barkeep doesn't flinch when he orders one, he allows that he might be adequate.
   We've no desire or need to embarrass anyone, so I won't go into the problems in trying to order a Ramos Gin Fizz -- a concoction involving egg whites, lemon juice, orange flower water, confectioners' sugar, cream, seltzer and of course gin -- locally. Suffice to say, you probably shouldn't try to get the drink (which is sublime, when properly prepared) outside of New Orleans.
   Huey Long, an aficionado of the drink, went so far as to fly Sam Guarino, the bartender of the Crescent City's Roosevelt Hotel, to New York in 1935 just so he could have one. In some choice newsreel footage screened at New Orleans' Tales of the Cocktail conference in July, the Kingfish (who was preparing to run for president) explained it all for the cameras as he tasted Guarino's drink (while the bartender of the New Yorker Hotel looked on, astonished):
   "I'm, uh, strictly on the water wagon, I don't drink anymore, I quit. But of course I'm going to sample this drink to see if you've made it right. That's the only purpose I'm doing it is to help you out. I wouldn't touch a drop of it if I wasn't trying to help you, to find out if you've mixed it right."
   Now the senator from Louisiana takes a long pull on the drink, sets it down and gives the camera a satisfied, advertising spokesman's grin.
   "That seems like all right." He takes another drink. "I won't take except enough to sample it, but I'd better be sure about it. I'll try a little further." Another long drink. "I believe that's all right." Another long drink. "I think it's perfectly all right!" Another drink, and the senator dramatically blinks his eyes. "I'm sure it's all right!" With that, Long slams the glass down, and the crowd of onlookers cheer.
   A few months later, Long was dead, either assassinated by a dentist or accidentally shot to death by his own bodyguards. One of the many regrets we have about the new version of All the King's Men in theaters now is that the scene where Sean Penn reenacts the New Yorker Hotel episode ended up on the cutting room floor.
   And Long's "gift to New York," the labor-intensive Ramos Gin Fizz -- a drink that requires a few minutes of shaking -- quietly retreated to N.O., where people still have time for such things.
   And that, in a nutshell, is our problem with gin -- it's like a lovely woman who takes too long to make herself presentable. If it's to your taste, that's fine, but we just prefer something a little less fussy, that doesn't insist on draping itself in blond Lillet and lime juice, a straight over-the-rocks spirit that can take or leave the trace of dry vermouth we offer it. But that's just us, we understand some folks enjoy a little drama in their lives. The following is a recipe for the Ramos Gin Fizz, as presented by Phil Greene at the 2006 Tales of the Cocktail conference.
   

The Ramos Gin Fizz
2 ounces gin 1 ounce heavy cream (or half
   and half) 1 egg white (pasteurized) Juice of half a lemon Juice of half a lime 2 teaspoons superfine
   (confectioners' ) sugar (or a
   half ounce simple syrup) 2-3 drops orange flower water 1 drop vanilla extract (optional) Club soda
   Combine all ingredients except club soda in shaker with plenty of cracked ice and shake viciously for the duration of Elvis Presley's "All Shook Up" (2:01), strain into a chilled Collins glass and add club soda to within an inch of the top to fizz. Spirits is a monthly imbibing guide. E-mail :
   

pmartin@arkansasonline.com

This story was published Friday, October 06, 2006