Sink or Swim
A bracing gin and tonic over a single clear ice block — the eleven words her mother gave her three months into Milwaukee
You can sink or you can swim. My kids swim.
Why this cocktail? Sink or swim is clarity, not cruelty. This bracing, no-nonsense G&T is the eleven words that kept her moving.
The Story
Three months into a brutal culture shock — Washington to Milwaukee in 2006 — Michelle Mason called her mother looking for reassurance. What she got was eleven words: 'You can sink or you can swim. My kids swim.' She has repeated them to herself ten thousand times since; they are a management principle now. This bracing gin and tonic, built tall over one clear block of ice, is that clarity in a glass — cold, clean, and unsentimental: the drink you finish standing up, because the people who love you most tell you to keep going when you want to stop.
Ingredients
- 2 oz gin
- 4 oz tonic water
- Lime wedge
- Large clear ice block
- Cucumber ribbon
Preparation
- 1.Place one large clear ice block in a highball glass.
- 2.Pour gin over the ice, then top with cold tonic.
- 3.Squeeze and drop in a lime wedge.
- 4.Garnish with a cucumber ribbon and serve immediately.