Not sure how non-traditional this variation is, but I like it.

Perfect Manhattan:
2 oz. Whiskey
1/4 oz. Sweet Vermouth
1/4 oz. Dry Vermouth
1 dash bitters
Cherry.
Basically just replacing half the sweet with dry for a bit more of an edge.

Replacing Whiskey with Cognac in an otherwise traditional Manhattan is great too.

This?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38376048

Five big bottles of Everclear. It's an effective disinfectant and firestarter. It the case of a toothache, it makes a decent local anesthetic. You can even mix it with something else and drink it, if you're desperate enough.

Five bottles of Appleton Estate 12-year-old rum!

The desperately in need of a new name Wonder Bra is a great gin drink, and an outstanding one for converting vodka drinkers.

1 1/2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce Cointreau
1 ounce pineapple juice

combine all with ice in a cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously and strain into a martini glass.

It goes down very easy and packs a huge punch. The floral and herbal notes in all three ingredients combine beautifully to create an illusion of much more sweetness than the drink actually has.

I also am a huge fan of the Corpse Reviver 2 mentioned earlier. It is worth picking up Amarena cherries to garnish these. They not only taste way better than maraschino cherries, but their incredibly dark color is perfect contrast in the corpse reviver 2.

Finally, if you haven't tried it Fever Tree tonic will take your gin and tonics to a new level of wonderfulness and is worth tracking down.

Happy drinking!

I am surprised to not see any mention of Pimms! I cannot offer a recipe, but if you go to Sun Liquor in Capitol Hill, ask the bartender to make a drink with gin, Pimms, cucumber, lemon, St. Germain, and lavender bitters. The original was created for a friend of mine, but all the bartenders there make their own versions that are equally delicious.

Slo gin is only one component, but my favorite mixed drink is the Alabama slammer. Cranberry juice (splash), orange juice, crushed ice, amaretto, sloe gin, and whiskey. sometimes I add triple sec too. I like the fact that it isn't too sweet or bitter, just nicely balanced. It's hard to find a bartender that doesn't try to add lemon juice--hate it in my AS though.

I love a Sidecar made with gin. I think it's best with juice from a Meyer lemon (which also gives you the foodies' vote for the more difficult to find lemon juice.

I share your quest. I went to Bathtub Gin and posed this question, noting to request not too sweet, not citrusy. He made a variation that included spiced rum with the whiskey and bitters, great combination.

Not a cocktail, but you can use it to help make a clafouti.

I would recommend trying a French 75. It is a gin based cockail with of splash of champagne...and a little bubbly is alwsys great for birthdays! If your wife is gin shy you could always ask the bartender to make it wit vodka or even grapefruit vodka would be nice. Cheers to a great birthday! - Kathy

A French 75 is a straight up classic that the girls and the cocktail geeks can all get behind. It's also the greatest (admittedly boozy) brunch drink and "corpse reviver" in the world, and the formula is easily tweaked to incorporate different flavors by substituting different liqueurs and even base spirits.

1 oz gin (I like Beefeater, I use a little more gin if using a softer gin, like Plymouth)
2 to 3 tsp (1/3 to 1/2 oz) lemon juice
2 to 3 tsp simple syrup or Cointreau

Shake and strain into a flute or cocktail glass, top with sparkling wine (something lean and acidic, try Gruet for $15 at Trader Joe's). Lemon or orange twist.

You can also double everything up and serve it over crushed ice for a great tall drink. Try subbing in Cognac, or heck, rum for the gin, St. Germain for the syrup or Cointreau. If you sub in Licore Strega or Green Chartreuse you'll probably need to add a little extra sugar. You could even try muddling in a little mint, if you're so inclined.

If she likes grapefruit, I can think of two options, The Blinker and the Paloma

Blinker Cocktail

1 1/2 oz rye whiskey
3/4 oz grapefruit juice
1 teaspoon grenadine

shake over ice, strain into cocktail glass, sip with no worries of unexpected sourness

Paloma

2 ounces reposado tequila
juice of 1/2 a lime
pinch coarse salt

Add ingredients to an ice-filled Collins glass; top with grapefruit soda.

While I'm not a fan of too-sweet fancy cocktails, nor feeling overly bitter, I have become a fan of this simple, yet stellar concoction as-of-late:

Order:
Gin + St. Germaine + splash bitters w/lemon wedge. The bartender should not find this too time-consuming, and (once you squeeze the lemon into it) you will be VERY happy with the result. Drink and be merry. Then have another.

Yes, you can. Here's how to make your own tonic at home (courtesy of Imbibe Magazine):

Ingredients:

4 cups water
3 cups pure cane sugar (or less, if that's your preference)
3 Tbsp. quinine (powdered cinchona bark; available in some herb stores or online)
6 Tbsp. powdered citric acid (found in the bulk section of most well-stocked grocery stores)
3 limes, zested and juiced
3 stalks lemongrass, roughly chopped

Just in case the link for quinine doesn't come through, here it is:

http://www.zooscape.com/cgi-bin/maitred/GreenCanyon/questp513833/jornada33423824/viewsubsub101246

Tools:

Medium saucepan
Spoon
Strainer
Cheesecloth or coffee filters
Funnel
Glass bottles with lids or screwtops

Directions:

STEP 1:   In a medium saucepan, bring the sugar and water to a boil until the sugar dissolves, then turn the heat down to low.

STEP 2:   Add the quinine, citric acid, lemongrass, lime zest and lime juice. Stir well and simmer for about 25 minutes, until the powders are dissolved and the syrup is thin and runny.

STEP 3:   Remove from heat and let cool. Strain out the large chunks through a colander, then filter through cheesecloth or coffee filters to refine. This step can take a while—and many filters—as the bark is a very fine powder, so be patient.

STEP 4: Funnel the syrup into sterilized glass bottles, cover tightly and store in the refrigerator for up to several weeks.

The drink that turned me onto gin was a classic by the name of Satan's Whiskers (curled) -- how can you not like a drink with that name? Besides having a brilliant name, it's also a delicious drink that highlights gins best qualities while at the same time masking some of the strong herbal flavors that sometimes turn off fans of vodka.

Satan's Whiskers (curled)

I should note, this is my personal variation on the recipe. You'll find slightly different versions elsewhere.

STEP 1: In a chilled martini glass, give a wash of Grand Marnier. Pour out the excess liqueur.

STEP 2: In a glass filled with ice, stir 2oz of Hendrick's gin, a splash of both sweet and dry vermouth, the juice of 1/2 a medium-sized orange and a few dashes of Fee's Orange Bitters.

STEP 3: Pour the mixture into the martini glass and garnish with a twist of orange.

In Seattle, you can find Fee's Orange Bitters at Delauranti in Pike Place Market (the south end of the market), or you can buy it online. Just Google "fee's bitters"

Gin? Gawd awful. Try Patron instead.

Here is a tasty drink to try. It incorporates in fresh cucumber and is also delicious with a few mint leaves thrown in or if you want to try something really different add a torn shisho leaf.

Gin Fresh
Muddle 3 slices of cucumber in a cockail shaker. Measure in 2 ounces of gin (try Plymouth or Tanqueray 10 with this drink, 3/4 oz fresh lime juice, 3/4 oz simple syrup (1 part sugar + 1 part hot water stirred until dissolved)
Fill with ice, cap and shake vigorously.
Strain into a cockail glass and top with a very thin slice of cucumber for garnish.

Enjoy! - Kathy

The shape of the ice will affect it's melting rate (and a sphere has about 20% less surface area than a cube of the same volume), but when you use ice to cool something, the relationship between chilling and diluting are directly proportional.

That is to say that no combination of ice shape, stirring, pouring, or shaking will make any drink colder but less watery than any other method. It only affects the speed at which the heat from the booze is expended to melt the ice.

So the answer to your question is to either refrigerate the bottle or to find a non-reactive chemical that sublimates without altering the drink.

Negroni is my favorite.

1/3 Campari
1/3 sweet vermouth
1/3 gin

Serve on the rocks in an old-fashioned glass with a twist of orange peel (never lemon). These three ingredients may sound odd together but they mesh perfectly.

I want to drink at your house. And what's a Flaming Dr. Pepper?

Try this sweet shot - it's a libacious liquid dessert:

Coconut Cake Colada Shot
1 oz Malibu coconut rum
1 oz vanilla vodka
1 oz pineapple juice

Shake with ice, strain and serve in a tall shot glass.

Robert covered this question well and gave some great drink examples.

When fresh cherries are in season I like to incporate this liqueur in a fresh cherry mojito.

Here is another drink that I made up using Maraska:

Luxe
2 oz Knobb Creek or other bourbon
1 oz Amaro Nonino
1 oz Maraska Maraschino liqueur
1 dash Angostura Bitters
Garnish: long lemon twist
Measure Knobb Creek, Amaro and Maraska into a cocktail shaker. Fill with ice and then stir vigorously with a bar spoon.Strain into a martini glass. Garnish with lemon twist.

Enjoy! - Kathy

Stevi gave some great options. To the northwest line up I also recommend: Aviation and Ransom (old tom style), both are produced in Oregon. Enjoy getting to know gin! - Kathy

There are a few different brands of Maraschino Liqueur, Luxardo and Maraska being the most common and popular. Maraschino was one of those ingredients which appeared with some regularity in the older cocktails, but for a long time was very difficult to find here in the states, and so when it finally made its way back in during the late 90's the cocktail geeks were all abuzz about it.

The product is completely different from the "syrup" found in jars of maraschino cherries, and so it really wouldn't replace the grenadine that is normally used to make a Shirley Temple. It also isn't the same as a cherry liqueur, and so it isn't a substitute for Cherry Herring, which is the cherry liqueur used in a Singapore Sling.

Perhaps the most popular cocktail which uses it is the "Aviation" (which you've apparently already had), for which the recipe is

2 ounce gin
1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
1/4 ounce lemon juice

(and it's now becoming popular to add a couple dashes of creme de violette, a long lost ingredient that was part of the original recipe for this drink, which has just recently come back to the states)

Another drink which has a popular following is the Last Word, which is fairly similar:

1/2 ounce gin
1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
1/2 ounce Chartreuse
1/2 ounce lime juice

But you were wanting something different, how about a Bourbon Crusta?

2 ounce bourbon whiskey
1/2 ounce triple sec
1/2 ounce maraschino liqueur
1/2 ounce lemon juice
2 dash orange bitters

I've got several other recipes which utilize Maraschino Liqueur on my website here:

http://drinkboy.com/Spirits/Default.aspx?itemid=17