My Round: How do you make a good G&T with gin that tastes like paint-stripper?

Just throw away the rule book

What's the world coming to? Once upon a time, any supermarket I went to in France sold at least Beefeater and often one or two other good brands of gin – not that anything else was needed when Beefeater was on offer. But here I am staying at an idyllically beautiful gîte in the unspoiled hinterlands of Poitou-Charente, and there is no bottle in sight from which a good Martini can be made. We are talking about an area where you're lucky to find a bottle of Gordon's. And where the norm is something called Old Lady's, made and bottled in Britain under license for the French drinks company Marie Brizard.

I don't know who the distiller is. It chooses to remain anonymous, which is just what I would do if I were responsible for producing this raw, rasping liquid. Its only intrinsic virtue is cheapness, denuding the holiday purse of a mere €9.50 (£6.17) per 70cl. But it also had an accidental virtue: it inspired me to make something I've been wanting to make for a few weeks, a super-charged take on the G&T devised by Toby Cecchini, head barman at New York's famed Odeon restaurant.

Now, you might think that the G&T needs improving as much as Bill Gates needs a $10 bill. And you would be right, more or less. But Cecchini's version, which he learnt from his father (a research chemist), will surprise you. I don't have the details here with me in France (sue me! I'm on holiday), so I can't tell the proportions or precise procedure, but here's the idea: steep halved squeezed limes in the gin for a couple of hours or so. Call it around two limes per 25cl, and to make sure the limes are ready to give up their juice roll them around before cutting, or microwave briefly (10 seconds per lime) and then leave to cool before cutting.

Cecchini père et fils make this in a crystal pitcher and serve it over hand-cracked ice. Well, our gîte didn't include those luxuries, but the maceration of the limes made a big difference to the sensory reception accorded to that woeful gin. With Tanqueray (the Cecchini preference) or Beefeater or Plymouth, it would be truly distinguished. And proof, if you were looking, that even a perfect drink can sometimes be improved upon.

By the way, an interesting footnote on Mr Cecchini. Last month the US magazine Publisher's Weekly reported that Broadway Books has bought "the story of Cecchini's life behind the bar" for an undisclosed sum. Apparently they are hoping that he "can make the kind of splash for bartending that Anthony Bourdain did for the restaurant kitchen in Kitchen Confidential. Having predicted some time ago that bartenders would become the new chefs (or that someone, somewhere, would try to make them look that way), I can hardly claim to be surprised. We shall see what the cold-hearted marketplace thinks.

In the meantime, I remain convinced of one contradictory pair of realities about bartending. One: you can no more hope to do at home what real barmen do in their workplace than a moggy can hope to eat like a cheetah. Two: a dedicated domestic experimenter can happen upon drinks as good as those served in any high-priced bar. If it doesn't seem like brazen nepotism, I put forth as proof my own brother, Henry Ehrlich of Brooklyn, New York. I told him about some drink or other a few months back. He started fiddling around with the ingredients, added a few of his own, and ended up with two parts gin, two parts Cointreau, one part Rose's lime juice. Shake, strain, drink. It floors all those who come across it. Possibly discovered (and named) elsewhere, but my bro found it all by himself. And using ingredients that can all be bought even here in provincial France. Apart from the lime cordial, that is. And the decent gin. *