It was probably a year-and-a-half ago that I purchased Nick Mautone’s wonderful Raising the Bar. For those who haven’t read it, it’s a book about cocktail-based entertaining which includes all manner of recipes—cocktails, syrups, garnishes, punches and snacks. I think of him as something like the Martha Stewart of cocktail parties. Just without the bizarre monotone and jail sentence.

Though I love this book and have used it many times when planning parties (the Champagne Sangria is amazing), it isn’t one I turn to often in my day-to-day mixing, primarily because all of the recipes are calculated in batches. Each one yields two, four or six (and sometimes eight or ten) drinks per recipe. And, while that is a blessing of immense proportions while entertaining, when you’re home alone you need math skills to successfully translate those measurements into a single drink. For those who don’t know, I suck at math.

That aside, I’ve decided it’s high time that I dealt with my pitiful arithmetic and tried out Mr. Mautone’s recipes. First up is this one, which happily helped me use up the half pint of raspberries languishing in my fridge.

Drunken Raspberries
½ pint raspberries, rinsed
3 tablespoons powdered sugar
3 oz créme de framboise
3 oz sweet vermouth
1 ½ oz lemon juice

2 oz Tanqueray No. Ten gin
4 oz tonic water

Place raspberries in a jar with a tight-fitting lid. Add the powdered sugar, tighten the lid and roll around to coat the berries in sugar. Once coated, add the liquids, put on the lid and roll around some more until ingredients are incorporated. Use immediately or chill overnight.

To serve, fill a highball with ice. Spoon two or three tablespoons of drunken berries and syrup onto the ice. Add the gin and top with tonic.

(Ed. note: I’ve edited this down from the original proportions, which makes six drinks, but the drunken raspberries make enough for a full round. To make six, use 12 oz gin and 48 oz of tonic water, in the same proportions per glass as above.)

Holy. Mother. This is probably the best variation on the gin and tonic I’ve ever tasted. It’s just sweet enough, when you couple the liqueurs with the tartness of the lemon and the natural tart qualities of the raspberries. Oh, and the raspberries. The drunken berry mix is lovely—I very nearly dumped the leftovers onto some ice cream. Overall, this drink is tart and sweet and refreshing, all the things I was hoping for. Luckily, the original recipe makes six of these so next time I’ll just skip the math and make a full batch!