THE TWO WORDS came naturally, as if whispered to me by the cocktail gods: gin and tonic. Drink name and recipe in one.

It was my beverage of choice when I arrived in New York many summers ago. To a 22-year-old excited by the prospect of frequenting bars that seemed kegs and kegs away from the beer-and-shot-soaked college spots he’d left behind just a month prior, it was an exotic beverage. Not vodka; gin. Not soda; tonic. This, friends, was a drink for grown-ups.

Occasionally, if I felt the need to impress a date, I would call for a fancy gin brand, of which, in 2001, there were only a handful, compared to the dozens we have now. (“Sapphire & Tonic” was a common refrain that summer.)

This drink has long been taken for granted as a simple highball, something to cool the masses—the breezier cousin of a proper cocktail like a Manhattan or Martini—but as Simon Ford of Fords Gin pointed out to me, it conforms perfectly to the cocktail’s original 1806 definition: liquor, sugar, water and bitter. Certainly, the concoction deserves more respect and contemplation than your everyday vodka/whiskey soda.

And lately it’s been receiving it, on both sides of the Atlantic. In Spain, where it is known as “gin tonic,” the drink is lovingly served in wine goblets filled with ice as well as various fruit and herbal accoutrements to perfectly complement the botanicals in your choice of gin. In the U.S., the intricate Spanish-style G&T has worked its way onto the menus of several of José Andrés’s restaurants from Miami to Los Angeles, as well as Ibero-centric restaurants like New York’s Cata, which offers a selection of more than 20.