Summer means calls for Manhattans start to slacken, and cocktail menus brighten up, flooded with gin and white rum, citrus and sparkling wine, and oodles of fresh herbs and berries. The perfect summer cocktail is bright and balanced, a refreshing remedy for sweaty summer nights.

Chris McClain, owner of The Gin Foundry, found one such cocktail on a visit to famed NYC cocktail bar Death & Co. McClain and his wife ordered the Gypsy Eyes, and it was love at first sip. “The tang of the grapefruit against the pungent herbs of gin and chartreuse create a perfectly balanced cocktail,” he explains. McClain’s version uses Gin Foundry Europa, a London dry gin that counts grapefruit among its ten botanicals.

Makes One
Recipe by Death & Co., adapted by Chris McClain

1/4 ounce green chartreuse
1 1/2 ounces The Gin Foundry Europa
1/2 ounce Aperol
1/2 ounce lime juice
1/2 ounce grapefruit juice
1/4 ounce simple syrup

Rinse coupe with chartreuse. Shake remaining ingredients with ice, and strain into coupe, or pretty glass of your choice.