Best Lemon Drop

Bright, clear, lightly sweet, and impeccably clean-tasting, a good lemon drop cocktail — or lemon drop martini for the uninitiated — should make you feel like you're sipping up the shiniest parts of summer. Fortunately, while they may taste like a day at the beach, lemon drops aren't actually seasonal, so you can get a little hit of that warm-weather sunshine even in the dreariest months. Thanks, vodka. We can always count on you.

The lemon drop can be modified into a lemon drop shot (keep the recipe's same proportions), but generally speaking, we recommend gently sipping your sweet-and-sour vodka concoctions rather than shooting them back; they're delicious, and the idea of a well-balanced cocktail isn't to knock it back without tasting it.

This cocktail is generally classified as a "girly" drink, but why do we allow such barriers to exist? Girls are awesome, Hemingway drank daiquiris, and it's 2014. So forget whatever gender you currently identify as and enjoy a little glass of mouth-puckering goodness.

Try out our Best Lemon Drop Recipe.

Jess Novak is the Drink Editor of The Daily Meal. Follow her on Twitter @jesstothenovak