I would consider myself a gin drinker, but not a particularly adventurous one. I like ending the week on a well-calibrated Negroni; occasionally I'll go for a bright and honeyed Bees Knees. It's not that I'm against branching out, though I do require a nudge to venture outside my creature-comfort cocktails. Which brings me to a delicious, refreshing gin-based number that I'd all but forgotten until a few weeks ago: the French 75.
There I was, poised to order my standard Friday Negroni at the Elephant Ranch bar in Las Cruces, N.M., when I got to talking to co-owner and head bartender Dillon Nunn.
