Most of my drinking at Georgetown occurs during the winter; for now, let’s disregard the fact that my twenty-first birthday was this past March. As winter transitions to spring, however, summer beckons and nights sipping whiskey to warm myself from the cold seem long past. Usually when classes end I go home to Rockaway Point, where the beach, with its promises of sunburn on my pale Irish stomach and skin cancer, is a mere bike ride away.
This summer I plan to stay in D.C., in all of its humid glory. I do not relish the prospect of walking back from the Treasury Department in work clothes, even if it’s in my linen summer suit. The upside is that, unlike winter, with its pesky responsibilities, like classes and papers, at the end of these summer days, all I will have ahead of me is the steadfast conundrum: what to drink.
The shores of the Potomac may be a poor substitute for my Rockaway beaches, but drink enough faux-tropical Mai Tai’s during the summer evening’s hazy heat and you can pretend, at least briefly, that you’re on the Hawaiian islands the drink is meant to evoke. Created by a San Francisco restaurateur in the 1940s, the three different kinds of rum in a Mai Tai—light, dark, and 151—will turn the hard concrete of Volta Pool in the shores of Waikiki soon enough. Don’t forget to mix in orange curacao (orange juice if you’re on a college student’s budget), a bit of lime juice, and simple syrup.
I may not own a Vineyard Vines polo, but that doesn’t mean I can’t drink like the popped-collar preppies who do. Named for one of their favorite “summering” locales, the Cape Cod is the tableau rasa of summer drinks. A blend of vodka and cranberry juice, the Cape Cod, much like the place itself, can be as adventurous as you want it to be. The basic building blocks, solid enough on their own, go great with so many other drinks that it’s tough for some homemade mixology to go wrong. The short step from the Cape Cod to the Cosmopolitan (add a splash of lime and triple sec or cointreau) has been a staple, and oftentimes my downfall, at Newman family parties for years. Throw in some peach schnapps, orange and pineapple juices, and you’ve got Sex on the Beach–not a staple at family parties, for the record.
Still, my go-to warm weather drink is the gin and tonic, garnished generously with lime. Created by the British East India Company, the G and T combats both scurvy (with the lime) and malaria (with the quinine in tonic water). You never know when a mosquito could be carrying malaria, and though modern tonic contains far less quinine than the water of old (fun fact: originally gin was the mixer), drink up, because it’s better to be safe than sorry.
I am sure, however, there will be plenty of humid nights when even mixing a gin and tonic, and cutting that lime, seems too monumental an effort. The easiest summer drink has three ingredients: beer, ice, and cooler. A cold can of Americana is impossible to mess up, and it goes great with a baseball game on the radio. It can even make listening to a Nats game tolerable.
Lap up on Dan’s beach after a hot summer day at dnewman@staff.georgetownvoice.com
