The best things to mix with gin are tonic water, soda water, ginger ale or ginger beer, lemonade, and citrus juice, grapefruit and orange above all. Pour one part gin to three parts mixer into a glass filled with ice, finish with a strip of citrus peel, and almost any of them makes a good drink. What separates them is how much of the gin you still taste: tonic frames it with bitterness, soda adds nothing but bubbles, ginger adds spice, and juice adds sweetness and body.
Below: every common gin mixer, what it does to the gin, the classic drink each one makes, how strong the finished glass is, and how to match the mixer to the bottle.
| Mixer | What it adds | Garnish | The classic drink |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tonic water | Bitterness, a little sugar | Lemon peel | Gin and tonic |
| Soda water | Bubbles only | Lime | Gin rickey, with lime juice |
| Ginger ale | Gentle spice, sweetness | Lime or lemon | Gin buck, with citrus |
| Ginger beer | Strong ginger heat | Lime | Gin buck, with citrus |
| Lemonade | Sweet and tart | Lemon wheel, mint | Tom Collins, made sparkling |
| Sprite or 7UP | Sweet, light citrus | Lime wheel | Gin and lemonade, British style |
| Grapefruit juice | Tartness, a bitter edge | Grapefruit peel | Greyhound, or a salty dog |
| Orange juice | Sweetness, body | Orange peel | Orange Blossom |
| Cranberry juice | Tart red fruit | Lime | Gin and cranberry |
| Pineapple juice | Tropical sweetness | Lime | Gin and pineapple |
| Coke | Sweet spice, caramel | Lemon wedge | Gin and Coke |
One part gin, three parts mixer
The ratio that works for nearly every gin mixer is 1:3, which means 1½ ounces of gin to 4½ ounces of mixer. At that strength the gin stays in front and the mixer supports it. Go to 1:2 if you want more of the gin's own character, or 1:4 for a longer, lighter drink. Juice is the one to watch: it is heavier and sweeter than anything fizzy, so a squeeze of fresh lemon or lime keeps a juice drink from tasting flat.
Measure it, whichever ratio you choose. A free pour drifts from glass to glass, and with only two ingredients there is nothing to hide the drift. We pour our own gin and tonic at 1:3, and the full method, with a table of ratios, is in how to make a gin and tonic, Gatsby style.
How strong is a gin and mixer?
Lighter than the gin, and stronger than it tastes. A 1½ ounce pour of 80 proof gin holds about 0.6 fluid ounces of pure alcohol, which the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism counts as one US standard drink. The mixer changes the size of the glass, not the amount of alcohol in it, so a gin and soda, a gin and ginger ale and a gin and orange juice built on the same pour each hold one standard drink.
The ratio sets the strength. Before any ice melts, the glass is about 13 percent alcohol at 1:2, about 10 percent at 1:3, a little under a glass of wine, and about 8 percent at 1:4. A gin bottled above 80 proof raises each figure slightly. What proof means, and why gin starts at 40 percent, is in how strong is gin.
Tonic water, the classic gin mixer
Tonic is the default for a reason. Its bitterness comes from quinine, and that dry edge sits naturally against juniper, while the sugar in a regular tonic rounds the drink off. It is also the mixer with the most to say, so the choice of tonic matters: a plain, lightly sweetened one leaves room for the gin, and a heavily flavored one can crowd it out. Light and diet tonics remove most of the sugar, which is where nearly all of a gin and tonic's extra calories come from, as the figures in gin calories show.
The recipe, the lemon-or-lime question and the federal limit on quinine are all in our gin and tonic guide.
Soda water, club soda and seltzer
Soda water is the purest test of a gin. It adds bubbles and nothing else, so a gin and soda tastes of exactly what is in the bottle, and it has no more calories than the gin itself. It is the mixer to choose when a gin is good enough to want to taste.
The fizzy waters are not all the same, though. Club soda has mineral salts added, such as sodium bicarbonate or potassium sulfate, to imitate natural mineral water, as Wikipedia's entry on club soda explains, which gives it a faint salinity. Seltzer is carbonated water with nothing added. Sparkling mineral water comes from an underground source with minerals of its own: under the federal standard for bottled water, 21 CFR 165.110, mineral water must contain at least 250 parts per million of dissolved solids, and no minerals may be added. The same standard leaves soda water, seltzer and tonic water out of the definition of bottled water altogether.
| What is in it | In a gin highball | |
|---|---|---|
| Seltzer | Carbonated water, nothing added | The gin exactly as it is |
| Club soda | Carbonated water with added mineral salts | Clean, with a faint salinity |
| Sparkling mineral water | Spring or well water with its own minerals, 250 ppm or more | Depends on the water; some taste distinctly mineral |
| Tonic water | Carbonated water, sweetener and quinine | Bitter and lightly sweet |
The gin rickey: soda, lime and a scene in The Great Gatsby
Squeeze half a lime into a gin and soda and you have a gin rickey, one of the oldest highballs in America. The rickey was first made with bourbon at Shoomaker's bar in Washington, D.C., in the 1880s, reputedly for a lobbyist known as Colonel Joe Rickey, and caught on with gin about a decade later, as the history of the rickey records. It takes little or no sugar, which makes it sharper and drier than most gin drinks, and in 2011 it was declared the District's official native cocktail.
It is also the drink that arrives in the hottest chapter of The Great Gatsby. On a day F. Scott Fitzgerald calls "broiling, almost the last, certainly the warmest, of the summer," Daisy cries "Make us a cold drink," and Tom comes back "preceding four gin rickeys that clicked full of ice." To make one, squeeze half a lime into a highball filled with ice and drop the shell in, add 1½ ounces of gin, and top with soda water.
Ginger ale and ginger beer
Both bring ginger, at different volumes. Ginger ale is a clear, sweet soft drink with a gentle ginger flavor, especially in the pale style sold as dry ginger ale. Ginger beer is stronger and hotter, and often cloudy. It was historically brewed by fermenting ginger with sugar and yeast, though most of what is sold today is a non-alcoholic soft drink made without brewing, as Wikipedia's entry on ginger beer notes. Choose ginger ale for a soft, easy drink and ginger beer when you want the spice to bite.
Ginger ale owes part of its place behind American bars to Prohibition. Dry ginger ale became popular in the United States during those years as a mixer, as Wikipedia's entry on ginger ale records, while ginger beer, which had peaked in popularity here in 1920, gave way to it.
Add citrus and the drink has a name. Gin with lemon or lime juice and ginger ale or ginger beer is a gin buck, one of the family of bucks, which are also called mules after the most famous of them, made with vodka. Pour 1½ ounces of gin over ice, squeeze in a wedge of lime and top with 4½ ounces of ginger ale or ginger beer.
Lemonade and lemon-lime soda
"Gin and lemonade" means two different drinks, depending on who wrote the recipe. In North America, lemonade is usually still and cloudy: lemon juice, water and sugar. In Britain, lemonade usually means a clear, carbonated lemon soda, and the still kind is called cloudy or traditional lemonade, as Wikipedia's entry on lemonade sets out. So a British recipe for gin and lemonade is a fizzy highball, closer to a gin and Sprite or a gin and 7UP, and an American one is a sweeter, still drink. Both are good.
American lemonade is heavy, so treat it like juice: 1:3 over plenty of ice, with a lemon wheel or a sprig of mint. Sprite, 7UP and other lemon-lime sodas take the same ratio and a wheel of lime. And if you make the lemonade yourself from fresh lemon juice, sugar and soda water, you have arrived at a Tom Collins, which is in effect gin and sparkling lemonade.
Juice: grapefruit, orange, cranberry and pineapple
Juice turns gin into something rounder, sweeter and more forgiving. "Gin and juice," as a drink order, is less a recipe than a family: any of the four below, or two together, over ice. Fresh-squeezed citrus is worth the effort, and a squeeze of lemon or lime keeps the sweeter juices lively. Start at 1:3 and adjust to taste.
Gin and grapefruit juice
The best juice for gin if you like your drinks on the dry side, because grapefruit's bitterness lines up with juniper much the way tonic's quinine does. Gin and grapefruit juice over ice is a greyhound; salt the rim of the glass and it becomes a salty dog. The name appears in print in 1945, in Harper's Magazine, for a drink of gin, sugar and canned grapefruit juice served in the restaurants of the Greyhound bus terminals, according to the drink's history. Today it is made with gin or vodka, often at one part to four.
Gin and orange juice
Sweeter and fuller than grapefruit, and a drink of the dry years. Gin and orange juice in equal parts is the Orange Blossom, a Prohibition-era cocktail that first appears in a 1932 cocktail book and turns up on Havana bar menus in the years that followed, according to Difford's Guide. Not everyone approved. In The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, published in 1947, David A. Embury called it "another spawn of the Prohibition toad," and rescued it by treating it like a sour: more gin than juice, and a few dashes of lime. His reasoning still holds. Orange juice is sweeter and less sharp than lemon or lime, so a little of either keeps the drink from going soft. For a long drink, pour 1½ ounces of gin over ice and top with 3 to 4½ ounces of fresh orange juice.
Gin and cranberry juice
Tart, dry and deep red. Check the label first. Cranberry juice cocktail is sweetened and diluted, and mixes easily at 1:3. Pure, unsweetened cranberry juice is far sharper, so lengthen it with soda water or soften it with a little simple syrup. A squeeze of lime finishes either.
Gin and pineapple juice
The most tropical of the four, sweet and lightly frothy if you shake it. It suits a gin with plenty of citrus, and a squeeze of lime or a couple of dashes of bitters keeps it from tipping into dessert. Apple juice works the same way, with a gentler fruit.
Other mixers worth knowing
- Coke. Gin and Coke is less familiar than rum and Coke, but it works, especially with a gin that has some warm spice in it. A wedge of lemon or lime cuts the sweetness, and Diet Coke takes the sugar out.
- Elderflower. An elderflower tonic, or a splash of elderflower cordial topped with soda water, turns the drink floral and a little sweeter.
- Still water. Less a mixer than a key. A few drops in a small glass of neat gin loosen its aromatics and soften the alcohol, which is how tasters approach it, as we describe in what does gin taste like.
- Vermouth, Campari and other liqueurs. These take gin from highballs into cocktails: dry vermouth makes a martini, and sweet vermouth with Campari a Negroni. Our house recipes are in the Gatsby cocktail library.
Match the mixer to the gin
The style of the gin matters as much as the mixer. A juniper-led London Dry gin has the structure to stand up to almost anything, including the strongest mixers on this list: ginger beer, Coke and juice. Softer, floral or contemporary gins, where juniper steps back, show best with soda water or a light tonic, which leave them room. Sweetened styles such as Old Tom need less sugar from the mixer. Sloe gin, a liqueur rather than a gin, is best with tonic, soda water or a splash of sparkling wine, as we set out in what is sloe gin. The styles themselves are laid out in types of gin, every style explained.
Gatsby Gin is a London Dry gin of ten botanicals, made in small batches in a copper pot still in Fort Myers, Florida. Its lemon peel and bitter orange peel meet the citrus mixers halfway, and its cassia bark, cardamom and turmeric give ginger ale and ginger beer something to answer. In a Negroni, against sweet vermouth and Campari, it was shortlisted for America's Best Negroni in ADI's 2026 Perfect Pour awards. Our own first pour is still tonic with a strip of lemon. What makes a gin London Dry, and the rules behind the name, is in what is London Dry gin.
How to mix a gin highball
- Chill the glass, in the freezer if you can.
- Fill it with ice, right to the rim. A full glass of ice melts more slowly than a few cubes, so the drink stays colder and less watered down.
- Pour in the gin first, over the ice.
- Top with the mixer, cold, poured slowly down the inside of the glass so it keeps its bubbles.
- Stir once, gently, and finish with citrus: a strip of peel twisted over the glass, or a squeeze of fresh juice for juice and ginger drinks.
Keep mixers cold and open them fresh. Carbonated mixers go flat long before gin loses anything, as we explain in does gin go bad, so small bottles mean a full fizz in every glass.
Frequently asked questions about gin mixers
What is the best mixer for gin?
Tonic water is the classic and the most popular. Soda water is the best mixer for tasting the gin itself, and ginger ale or lemonade suit anyone who wants something softer and sweeter.
What can you mix with gin besides tonic?
Soda water, ginger ale, ginger beer, lemonade, Sprite or 7UP, Coke, and juices such as grapefruit, orange, cranberry and pineapple. Pour one part gin to three parts mixer over ice and finish with citrus.
What juice goes well with gin?
Grapefruit is the classic, the base of the greyhound. Orange juice makes the Prohibition-era Orange Blossom, and cranberry and pineapple both work with a squeeze of lime.
What is the right ratio of gin to mixer?
One part gin to three parts mixer, or 1½ ounces of gin to 4½ ounces of mixer. Use 1:2 for a stronger, more gin-forward drink and 1:4 for a longer, lighter one.
Can you mix gin with lemonade?
Yes. In the United States, lemonade is usually still and cloudy; in Britain, the word usually means a clear, carbonated lemon soda. Both work at about 1:3 with plenty of ice.
Is ginger ale or ginger beer better with gin?
Ginger ale makes a softer, sweeter drink, and ginger beer a spicier, stronger one. With lemon or lime juice, either makes a gin buck.
Can you mix gin with Coke?
Yes. Gin and Coke works best with a gin that has some warm spice, and a wedge of lemon or lime to cut the sweetness.
Can you mix gin with Sprite?
Yes. Gin and Sprite, or gin and 7UP, is close to what the British call a gin and lemonade. Pour it at about 1:3 over ice with a wheel of lime.
What is a gin rickey?
A highball of gin, fresh lime juice and soda water, with little or no sugar. It was created in Washington, D.C., in the 1880s, and Tom serves gin rickeys in chapter seven of The Great Gatsby.
How strong is a gin and mixer?
With 1½ ounces of 80 proof gin and 4½ ounces of mixer, the drink is about 10 percent alcohol before the ice melts, and it holds one US standard drink whatever the mixer.
Is a gin and tonic high in sugar?
Regular tonic water is sweetened, with around 11 grams of sugar in 4 ounces according to USDA data. A light or diet tonic takes out most of it, and soda water takes out all of it.
