. . somebody had to have done this.

I was preparing bitter melon this evening (I prefer the small dark green really knobby ones popular in India to the larger smoother light green Chinese models found in most grocery stores) and this came to mind

• The British invented "gin and tonic" as a trick to get reluctant troops to take their quinine (very bitter) to ward off malaria.
• The British were in India.
• The British had gin
• Bitter melons (karela) are very popular in Indian cuisine.
• Bitter melons are bitter because they contain enough quinine to stop a mosquito the size of a water buffalo.
• Ergo . . .

Digging around under my kitchen counter I found a tiny bottle labeled "Bombay Gin" with a portrait of Queen Vici on it, with still a little in the bottom. Muddle some thin slices of bitter melon in the bottom of the glass, add gin and ice. Seems really not bad, but there wasn't enough gin to be definitive. All else I could find was Dutch Genever and you don't use that in mixed drinks. Have to experiment more some other day.

Warning! Caution! Ye who enter here . . . The reason there was so little gin available is that I long ago found the bitter truth in the line from Have a Glass of Madera My Dear: ". . . . and gin affects my prowess." - but if you don't even feel much like jacking off some evening, what the hell . . .