1.5 oz gin

.75 oz aperol

.75 oz grapefruit juice

ginger beer*

combine over ice in a collins glass and stir to mix. lime garnish.

* we use a very citric ginger beer at my bar. those making this at home, or with a lighter ginger beer may find it useful to add some lemon or lime juice, at least if you want the original effect.

sometimes my mixological subconscious gifts me something like this, a complete and fully-formed quantum of inspiration; the name, what’s in it, the proportions arriving in my conscious brain with such rapidity as to be temporally indistinct, the whole constellation popping into place as if it must always have been there already.  sure, it’s a variation on a classic (the dragonfly, which is the gin version of a moscow mule or a horse’s neck or a dark and stormy or a suffering bastard), and pairing aperol and grapefruit is mixology 101.  but the combo works well, it’s ridiculously easy to make, and it sold really well.

presentation note: it’s meant to be drunk all mixed-up, and i wanted it bright-ass pink for service, but if you’d like to be a little fancier when serving this at home or elsewhere, you can mix the top three ingredients first and then top with ginger beer and get a really nice red-and-pink to green color gradient, the boundaries of which you can tickle with the straw by gently agitating the ice on top.