Margaritas are a great, safe way to start mixing herbs with your cocktails because -- quite frankly -- they are very forgiving about your proportions. Add (1) a healthy amount of tequila, (2) at least 1 fresh squeezed lime or 2 of they are small/dry, (3) a touch of simple syrup or agave syrup, (4) and any one of the following muddled* combinations:

Green apple and rosemary (just a sprig for scent, do not muddle)
Cucumber and cilantro
Watermelon and thai basil
Blackberry and mint

Or, if tequila isn't your thing and your feeling all "pacific northwest," I had a heavenly Alpine Martini at a Belltown establishment several years ago. If I'm not mistaken, this is the recipe:

Mix 1.5 ounces citron vodka and 1 scoop of Douglas Fir Sorbet (recipe follows) in a chilled martini glass with 1 small cedar frond as garnish.

For the Douglas Fir Sorbet:

1 cup water
1 cup sugar
8 inches Douglas fir (cut into 1-inch lengths)
1 cup water
1 tablespoon gin

Boil first cup of water with sugar and Douglas fir for 10 minutes. Strain and cool. Add second cup of water and gin. Churn as directed on your ice cream machine.

Recipe for a good gin-tasting party:

1.) Print six, glass-sized circles on letter sized paper. Label each circle 1-6
2.) Place six glasses on the table. One on top of each circle.
3.) Pour a shallow glass (about 2-3 swallows) of each gin. I recommend in no particular order:

Gordon's
Hendrick's
Old Tom
Voyager (locally produced in Woodinville and AWESOME)
Plymouth
Dry Fly (Personally, I hate it. But others seem to like it.)
Bombay Sapphire
Tanqueray

The trick is to include both cheap and expensive, well-known and obscure brands. Keep your guests guessing.

4.) One-by-one, work your way through the gins, sipping water between each glass. Also, keep a handful of coffee beans handy to refresh your sense of smell as gin can be quite odiferous. For each glass, have your guests make notes about what they taste.

5.) When it's all done and everyone's picked their favorite -- you'd be surprised what tastes good when you don't know how much it costs -- start mixing cocktails!

When cocktail time arrives, I recommend having a few common mixers handy. Besides the traditional gin-and-tonic, I'd recommend:

Aviation
2 shots gin
½ shot lemon juice
⅓ shot Maraschino
⅙ shot Crème de Violette
(optional egg whites)

If that doesn't satisfy your tastes, try the Cocktail Database!
http://cocktaildb.com

Oatmeal cookie? Equal parts: Irish Cream liquor (eg. Baileys), Jägermeister, Cinnamon schnapps (eg. Goldschlager) and butterscotch schnapps.

A basil gimlet was possibly the drink that started me learning and experimenting more with cocktails. It could be made either like a mojito typically is with the basil muddled with simple syrup and fresh lime juice (as an aside, I much prefer these with simple and fresh lime as compared to Rose's lime) before adding gin or, as I did at home, was to make a basil simple syrup (simply steep the basil in a 1:1 sugar:water combination) to shake with the lime juice and gin. My wife, who was pregnant the last time I made the basil simple, enjoyed the basil simple and lime with seltzer for a non-alcholic alternative.

Mint is great in drinks other than the mojito too. The mint julep is an obvious one, but a gin-gin mule is a another great drink that uses mint, which my wife also enjoyed sans the gin. Look up Audrey Saunders' recipe for both the gin gin mule and the homemade ginger beer (which is super easy to make). If I recall, they are on the epicurious site.

Make shirley temple cocktails for all your friends the next time they come over, and see which one gets smashed first!

You can have it in a Singapore Sling. But honestly, I had a bottle of that stuff for fifteen years with just a tablespoon out of it, and eventually poured it down the sink. I don't like cough syrup much.

The "best" is Heering, Cherry Heering, but it's so vile I think the cheap-o De Kuypers is good enough.

I'm sure somebody likes it!

The government unions will stop Costco to protect their liquor store employees who control us by setting times we can buy liquor.

I'm hoping some enterprising hybrid place (Sun Liquor might be in the running?) will combine bar + marketplace - so that one might BUY their liquor and then, if they so choose, have a qualified bartender make something fabulouso from it (or vice versa: bartender serves up samples using featured spirits, and then sells the bottled liquor/mixers for take-home use).

(I get free drinks for the idea, right?)

Cucumber is a great base for refreshing, but not sweet, cocktails. I once had a cocktail at the now-defunct Madame Butterfly in Portland that was some kind of cucumber-infused gin that had cucumber slices floating in it. I'm not sure what else was in it - maybe just tonic or club soda. It was super tasty & refreshing and not at all sweet. They were also known for a cucumber margarita that I never got around to trying. Another cucumber-based drink that's sweeter, but still not too sweet, is a Pimm's cup. 

I made a cocktail at home a few weeks ago with fresh rosemary muddled with a touch of sea salt, fresh-squeezed lemon juice, vodka, and club soda. It was really tasty.

Rosemary-infused lemonade is super delish. Something about the acidity draws out the rosemary. Lavender in lemonade would also be good.

I don't know, but it sure will involve a different mindset if the initiative passes. I'm down in Los Angeles for the summer, and it takes a while to become accustomed to the idea that you can get everything you need (liquor-wise) at Ralph's (Kroger), or Von's (Safeway), or Albertson's, or Rite-Aid, or CVS, etc. They even have weekly specials!

Makes life soooo much easier, my friends. Really, it does.

Not only that, but think how many truly awful liquor stores will open. Some goober is going to try to sell booze and second hand baby toys and housepaint out of the same storefront. Lots of them are going to try to cut service, selection and ambiance to the bone to see how cheap they can sell booze. Lots and lots of crazy overpriced boutiques will open up where they borrow $200,000 just for the remodel before the store opens in the hopes that customers will line up around the block for $300 fifths of whiskey. Somebody will make a store that looks and smells exactly like all the current WSLCB stores.

And then? You know what? They will fail!

Yes! The crappy ones will fail, fail, fail! We can see their failure coming a mile away, and maybe have a dead pool, marking the days until the going out of business sale.

Unlike the current status quo, where you get what you get and no matter how much they suck, they aren't permitted to fail and be replaced. I really think watching all the bad ones fall under the bus will be as much fun as enjoying all the good ones.

for a smooth gin i go for dry fly or hendrick's if i want a gin with more of a bitte i go for sapphire or tanqueray 10, and as for a dry gin beefeater or bombay dry is good and plymouth is a good go to as well.

Hendricks for special treat. Beefeater or Tanqueray for everyday.

Cocktails:
Gin & tonic (de rigueur)
Gimlet
Ramos Gin Fizz
A royal drink - Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, likes a Dubonnet and gin (30% gin, 70% Dubonnet with a slice of lemon under the ice).

If you do a blind neat taste test, slip in a ringer: Grey Goose. The best tasting vodka. Ha ha. You can also mix, taste, and argue the merits of gin or vodka martinis (or both).

In addition to the ones listed by Stevi below, I recommend Tanqueray and Bombay in the "London dry" category. NOT Bombay Sapphire or Tanqueray 10 -- to me these supposedly "premium" offerings have lost track of what they're supposed to be. Regular ol' Tanqueray is it for me, personally. Boodles is pretty good, too.

Sonja, welcome to the wonderful world of gins!

Styles and some brands I'd like to recommend are:

London dry - Beefeater, Voyager (made in Woodinville by Pacific Distillery)
Plymouth - Plymouth (unique case of the only brand in a recognized style)
Old tom - Hayman's, Ransom
Genever - Bols
New Gin - Hendrick's, Dry Fly (also Washington produced)

I taste gins the same way I taste any spirit, which is straight. I will usually pour enough for my taste that there's sufficient to add an ice chip for a second taste to see how water and temperature change it.

My go to cocktails for gin tasting are the gin and tonic, the martini (4:1 gin:vermouth plus orange bitters) and the martinez (gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino liqueur, and orange bitters). I've found these three give me a good sense of how versatile a specific gin may be.

Stevi and Robert both had excellent answers to your question. I love the Negroni and think Stevi's idea of subbing our the Aperol for the Campari is very tasty!

Something I have been experimenting with lately is infusing distilled water with fruits and then serving it with vodka or gin. Right now fresh local berries with a few lemon zests are great to infuse for about 4 hours in water. You can do the same with cut up apples and a few sprigs of fresh thyme. Stir these lovely infused waters into your favorite light spirit such as gin, vodka or silver rum. Serve up or on the rocks... make it as strong as you like it. If you are mixing at home and want to experiment, this is a very light, refreshing and dry cockail idea. Enjoy. - Kathy

Rather than focusing on what you don't want, you should think about what you do want?

I tend to like boozy cocktails myself, and have many of the same favorites that Robert lists.

If you want to try experimenting with the bitter spectrum, I'd recommend trying out some of the amari (bitter liqueurs). A great introduction is the Negroni, equal parts Campari, gin, and sweet vermouth.

This is a great template recipe, as well. Substitute one or more of the ingredients with something similar. Use tequila instead of gin, you have an agavoni, for example.

If you're new to the bitter liqueurs and find Campari a little much, try Aperol, which is less intense but still flavorful. A great way to try that is in the traditional Aperol spritz, with some sparkling wine and soda water, making it a lighter aperitif drink that's great in summer.

Jessie, Frankly, if you are getting cocktails that are "syrupy-sweet" then you're being served poor cocktails. A very important component for a true cocktail is "balance", which amongst other things means the drink shouldn't be too sweet or too sour.

But as for a cocktail suggestion... there are a wide variety of flavors out there. On one end of the spectrum migght be the Martini, which is essentially a fairly boozy drink, and without any sweetness or sourness to bring it in line. On the other end might be something like a Lemon Drop, which is sugar, lemon juice, and vodka, designed with the intent to taste like the "Lemon Drop" candies.

One of my go-to drinks is the Manhattan. It is similar to a Martini, but uses whiskey instead of gin, and sweet vermouth instead of dry (and angostura bitters instead of orange). It's use of sweet vermouth will make it technically sweeter than a Martini, but unless the bartender is also dumping maraschino cherry syrup into the drink (shame), then it's sweetness will be well tempered by the whiskey.

Another favorite of mine is the Old Fashioned, at least when properly made. However the chances of you getting a properly made one are almost, but not quite, zero. Unless of course you go to one of the few bars that can really appreciate this drink (Zig Zag, Vessel, Chantanee Thai, Rob Roy, Sambar, Canlis spring immediately to mind). So this might be a drink best perfected at home.

Which of course brings us to the most important aspect of how to get a good non-sweet cocktail... which is find a bar that really takes pride in their craft. First and foremost, I always recommend people visit the Zig Zag Cafe, which is located just below the Pike Place Market along the outdoor stairway that leads to the Seattle Aquarium. Get a seat at the bar if at all possible, and let the bartender know what sort of drink you are looking for, and I'm sure they'll be able to take care of you.

the savoy cocktail book has some great classic cocktail's

I find metaxa to make a great side car

Sureau Diamant. We make them at Le Pichet.

5 parts Plymouth gin
2 parts St-Germain
juice of 1/6th lemon
3 drops Peychaud bitters
top with sparkling Mauzac (Blanquette de Limoux) or some other off-dry white bubbles.

It's light, super refreshing, doesn't really taste like any of it's component parts, and will knock you on your ass if you let it. Pretty much everything you'd want in a summer cocktail.

Like Stevi, I've been using Dolin blanc in a lot of martini variations, with a 2:1 ratio and an added barspoon of Ingredient X -- this is usually any well-loved (or under-loved) liqueur in the liquor cabinet that I'm curious to try on such an appealing stage. Wins to date: apricot liqueur, Herbsaint.

I also made up a batch of Dolin blanc por Mi Amante earlier this summer -- just filled a jar 3/4 full with quartered strawberries, covered with the vermouth and let it rest in the fridge for 3 weeks before straining. Mix that 1:1 with a good savory gin (Martin Miller's Westbourne is excellent), and you're in business.

Or, y'know, Dolin blanc just rocks all on its own in a wine glass while you're fixing dinner. That's where most of mine goes, come to think of it.

Like Justin said, the Cynar Flip is delicious -- I've made it with a whole egg (flips are like eggnog, just toss the whole thing in there), with no other ingredient except two ounces of Cynar, and when shaken like crazy and strained into a glass, it's surprisingly tasty. You can try the same approach with pretty much any amaro with good results.

Since you mentioned whiskey and eggs, I'd be remiss if I didn't point out one big-flavored drink: the Colleen Bawn. I did a full writeup of this drink a few years ago (posted here), but basically it's 3/4 ounce each of rye whiskey, yellow Chartreuse and Benedictine, with a whole egg and a little simple syrup. Shake like hell, strain into a glass and top with a little cinnamon. It's like an eggnog that got a PhD in comparative literature -- somewhat archaic but incredibly complex.

Chincoha is the way to go - if you live in the Ballard area Dandelion located on Ballard Ave has this available.

Great answers guys on eggs in cockails!
For the summer I love a clover club shaken with fresh raspberries and thyme.

Summer Thyme Clover Club
1 sprig fresh thyme
5 fresh raspberries
1 1/2 oz gin
3/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/2 oz simple syrup or honey syrup
1 egg white

Tear thyme and add it to a cocktail shaker along with the raspberries. Measure in the remaining ingredients. Fill shaker with ice. Cap and shake vigorously till frothy. Strain and serve up.

Mark hit it with his answer on the Bloody Bull and I think tequila sounds really good with the meaty flavor. I did have a bloody bull years ago that a hotel try to get "creative" put the prime rib drippings into it - ok - can you say greasy freakazoid mess! Boullion or broth is the way to go.