It's National Gin and Tonic Day everybody.

It's National Gin and Tonic Day everybody.

It's the news you've all been waiting for everybody. No, sadly not the official end of coronavirus but it will be quite shortly. You can feel it in your bones. The good news though is that today is National Gin and Tonic Day. Yes, it is indeed. Now what about that for a pleasant surprise? You weren't expecting that one, hey? What a boost to our flagging spirits if you'll excuse the pun. After all the gloom and doom, despondency and dejection, you can finally let yourselves go just for today or perhaps you'd prefer to drown your sorrows or celebrate your personal victories with a classic G and T, a quick glass of gin and tonic.

Let's face it. You deserve it. In fact finish off several bottles of gin and tonic although that may not be entirely advisable because if you do get completely drunk you may have to pay the penalty tomorrow morning with that famous feeling of hungover regret and somehow wishing that you hadn't bothered in the first place. But if the mood does take you then please be my guest. This is the time for a good, old fashioned drop of the hard stuff because this is the day to get just a bit tipsy and if you like completely blotto.

Now, after well over three months of fear, indecision, terror and calamitous tidings from all four corners of the globe you'd be entitled to get plastered so you now have my permission to knock back huge quantities of the hard stuff. National Gin and Tonic Days don't come around that often so this is all the more reason for total drunkenness and inebriation. For this is the day to sit back and relax, take the weekend in your stride and remember that after you've finished mowing the lawn you can face a gin and tonic with a clear head and conscience.

Back in those far off and now dimly remembered days of the Georgian age, gin and tonic was one of the many alcoholic choices of the rich and aristocratic upper classes. You must recall those gin soaked palaces where the men and women of the day would waltz the evening away to enchanting piano recitals and then drink the night away quite unashamedly into the wee small hours of the following morning.

Ah yes, those gin-soaked palaces where the lords and ladies, the titled and the not so entitled would fling convention out of the french windows, step lightly towards each other under the opulent and gleaming chandeliers and raise a toast to capitalism and luxury. They would bow and acknowledge each other ever so politely while the women curtsied to their menfolk with that gentle femininity.

Throughout the centuries and right up until the present day though, gin and tonic is the one drink that is invariably associated with a severe setback or disappointment. For those who have experienced another stressful day at work or the loss of anything then gin and tonic is the immediate answer, the antidote to all ills and discomforts. How often you have stared into a glass of gin and tonic and hoped that it would soothe your fevered brow and make things temporarily better? Or perhaps you were simply teetotal.

In ancient episodes of Coronation Street- if your memory served you correctly- didn't the likes of Elsie Tanner and Vera Duckworth and occasionally Ena Sharples partake of a sharp swig of gin and tonic and then tell Annie and Jack Walker to keep the change? Pubs are often the first retreat where we need to just calm down, an alcoholic sanctuary where the cares and woes of a quite horrendous day of the office can be offloaded.

In the gentlemen's clubs of London such as the famous Garrick, those with money to spend and wartime stories to re-tell, will slump back into those beautifully upholstered leather chairs, light a Havana cigar, browse through the Financial Times, puff on the said cigar a thousand times and then ponder deeply on their shares in all of their blue chip companies. Then the large glass of gin and tonic will be raised victoriously because last week his Polo team had once again triumphed on the playing fields of England.

But for many of us gin and tonic will always be the drink of reflective contemplation, the drink to take the heat out of a troubled day, the drink to stare at interminably when that crucial business deal may have fallen through at the last minute. Or maybe gin and tonic was that soothing pick me up when the mood may have been desperately low.

And yet those gin- soaked palaces from the 17th and 18th century do sound like a running theme through that period when nobody really cared about getting tipsy and then sloshed because all of those Hooray Henry hedonists were knocking them back one after the other. Gin and tonic may well have been the ultimate solution to all problems and the mind is filled with images of rowdy mobs of men smashing glasses of ale, throwing back gin and tonics in rapid succession, jumping recklessly from already wonky wooden tables and then falling over on a rain soaked pavement when the landlord had clearly had enough. Gin and tonic worked on every level. At least until the following morning.

So there we are ladies and gentlemen, today is Gin and Tonic day and not before time. How long have you been waiting for that day? In the old days Gin and Tonic was just plain G and T with perhaps a packet of crisps and peanuts for company. Now there's Pink Gin, Gordon's Gin, Beefeater, Tanqueray and the more recent Gin Mare. Now before you become alarmed at my extensive knowledge of gins it might be pointed out that you had to do a spot of research in the name of this article.

Apparently the late Queen Mother was partial to a drop of gin and tonic while those eminent members of Parliament were never averse to a glass or two of stimulus when the going got tough. Tory grandee Kenneth Clarke swore by a glass of whisky at his side at Budget time and as the complete stress buster, both whisky and gin and tonic still have the capacity to soften the blow and get straight to the heart of the matter. So please feel free to raid the cocktail cabinet or open up the cupboard and pour yourself a neat concoction of that famous drink that always took pride and place at any party or pub gathering. Cheers folks.