Gin Basil Highball

Dave Arnold says a truly good gin and tonic is impossible with traditional methods, but a careful one is possible: frozen gin and glass, fresh ice-cold tonic, a fixed order of pouring, and the lime last. He also gives the force-carbonated version.

A stirred drink is pure chilling and dilution, and consistency is the whole game. Dave Arnold covers the right ice, why metal beats glass, when to serve up or on the rocks and why colder is not always better.

Metal tins against glass, Boston against cobbler, julep against hawthorn: Dave Arnold says what he uses and why, from thermal mass to the gate on a hawthorn strainer and the knack of stirring with a bar spoon.