Rickey

The lime does most of the work in a rickey. You squeeze 0.5 oz (15 ml) of fresh lime juice over ice, add the spirit, and top the glass with soda water. A drink becomes a rickey when lime, a spirit and soda meet over ice. You will find it on menus of gin and soda drinks, and it has been the official native cocktail of Washington, DC, since 2011.

The rickey is easy to confuse with its close cousins. The highball is the closest, and the lime is the difference. A collins uses lemon and sugar, and a fizz is shaken, sweetened and served with no ice. The rickey sits between them. It is dry, long and served over ice. Sources disagree on sugar in a rickey. It is usually little or none.

A common belief is that Joe Rickey invented the drink. He said he only made it known, and Difford's Guide credits the bartender George A. Williamson. The name comes from Colonel Joe Rickey, a lobbyist who drank it at Shoomaker's bar in Washington, DC, in the 1880s. The original version used bourbon, and gin took over within about a decade. The alcohol-free version is a mocktail called the Lime Rickey, made with lime, syrup and soda.