It’s been hot in Cairo lately, so my mind naturally turns to ice-cold drinks.

One of the most popular (non alcoholic, of course) drinks in Egypt is an infusion of karkade, or hibiscus flower, which are grown in Upper Egypt and Sudan. The beverage can be drunk hot or cold; it has a vivid red color and a deliciously tart taste.

One of our local grocery stores in Cairo sells pre-made hibiscus juice, and G. had the genius idea of mixing some of the juice into one of our favourite cocktails: the gin and tonic.

The G&T is one of the only cocktails that we’ve found is easy to make here in Cairo, so I should include a few words about the other ingredients.

First, the gin. In Egypt, alcohol can only be bought from specialty stores such as Drinkies. But alcohol production is heavily regulated, and most of the beverages you can buy in these stores are Egyptian-made, or at least Egyptian-branded—that includes the beer, of course, but also the wine, the gin and, yes, the whisky. They have alluringly appropriate names like The Auld Stag and Butler’s and Château Granville, but you must not be fooled. The quality isn’t great, but we’ve found the gin, in particular, tastes fine when mixed. Also, at 200 Egyptian pounds (just over 10 USD) for the 750 ml bottle and hour-delivery, I won’t complain.

Second, the tonic. We were a bit disheartened when we first moved here because we couldn’t find tonic anywhere in corner shops or grocery stores. When the grocery store nearest to us finally did get some after a couple of weeks, we bought all the bottles on the shelf. Since then, we think we broke their ordering system by creating high demand and they’ve had entire shelves stocked full of tonic, so we never run out (yes, we do drink a lot of G&Ts).

So what about the cocktail? Drop in a small lime cut in half and a couple of ice cubes. Then add a healthy pour of gin and a splash of hibiscus juice. Top with tonic. The tart hibiscus flavour melds with the citrus and balances the sweet quinine of the tonic, and the bright red colour—just nudging towards pink when diluted in the drink—sets off the green of the lime. As refreshing as it is beautiful.

When we were last in Upper Egypt, we purchased a bag of dried hibiscus flowers at the souq so that we could make our own karkade infusion back home when we leave Egypt and replicate the drink, this time playing around with different kinds of gins and tonics.