Here we are in August. Quick, name a summer drink. Did it involve pineapple? A blender? Coconut flavoring? Teensy umbrellas? That's all fine if you're on a tropical island, but there's a whole genre of refreshing summer coolers that have been lost to the post-War generations.

Here's one: the gin buck, an utterly forgotten favorite from the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Nobody knows where it came from. Nobody knows what happened to it. Old-timers remember drinking it before the war, and many still mix it at home, but the next time you hear somebody order it in a bar will probably be the first time.

It's a shame, too. It's the perfect summer drink -- cool, citrusy, tart, a bit of spice. And you don't have to feel like a jerk ordering it from the bartender, even on a busy night (supposing he knows what it is). When they're really swamped, bartenders obviously prefer uncomplicated drinks -- three ingredients or less -- and you'd do well to heed their preferences. (Frank Rich's Rule of Boozing No. 8: "When the bartender is slammed, resist the powerful urge to order a slightly-dirty, very-dry, in-and-out, super-chilled half-and-half martini with a lemon twist.")

The gin buck? Three ingredients, no matter the variation. You can try the "modern" version: gin, lemon juice and ginger ale, which gives the drink a mellow lemon-lime flavor. Or, substitute the lemon with a half-lime squeeze, rimming the glass with the pulp to make it extra tart. Either way, it's fizzier than a gin gimlet, and sweeter that a straight gin and tonic.

But to really do it right, you'll want to go retro and spice it up with ginger beer, which, unlike today's ginger ale, actually tastes of ginger. That's how they made it in the old days: gin, authentic ginger ale (that actually tasted like ginger, so to get that flavor today, we'd use ginger beer) and lime juice, over ice cubes. The ginger and juniper flavors interact intensely.

"It's part of a whole series of drinks that are incredibly important to cocktail history," said Ted Haigh, author, spirits historian and curator of the newly opened Museum of the American Cocktail in New Orleans.

Here's another one -- the Mamie Taylor, named after a New York opera company prima donna. It's the same drink, but for gin you substitute Scotch, whose sharp flavors are masked by the lime and ginger.

Unlike the buck, this one can be traced to a bar in Rochester, N.Y., and to a bartender named Bill Sterritt, who is said to have invented the drink in 1899 (though a 1900 cocktail magazine suggested the Mamie Taylor may have been "invented" 30 years after the Scotch Lassie was -- different name, same drink, but from the Deep South).

The two drinks are so vitally important to cocktail lineage because they are the forefathers of the Moscow Mule -- vodka, ginger beer, lime and Angostura bitters -- the cocktail in a copper mug that single-handedly introduced vodka to the American palate in the 1950s.

The cocktail hasn't been the same since. Vodka is a staple on mixed drink menus everywhere, and vodka sales grow year after year.

The gin buck and the Mamie Taylor are both great warm-weather refreshers, Mr. Haigh said. "The fresh lime juice is so bracing in the summer."

If they're so good and so important, what killed them? Indifference? Air conditioning? Who knows, really. There are a million drinks out there, and we can't possibly remember them all. Cocktails and the liquors that compose them can vanish for decades, then reappear, reinvented for a new audience. Some early 20th-century drinks have been rediscovered thanks to America's renewed interest in "classic cocktails," while other recipes languish in the historical vaults, waiting for the right restaurant, celebrity or TV show to make them popular again.

And sometimes, they take up different names -- the Waldorf Astoria, in the early 1900s, called its gin buck "the Marguerite," using sweet gin over dry gin. Others have called it the "foghorn," says Mittie Hellmich's "Gin Mini Bar." The Mamie Taylor, meanwhile, has been called the Mamie Gilroy.

In the cases of these two drinks, it might have been the inability to find good ginger ale that finally relegated them to the memory banks. Mr. Haigh and ginger ale aficionados everywhere recommend Blenheim Ginger Ale, a spicy South Carolina favorite that's hard to find. In Pittsburgh, ask around for Regatta's Ginger Beer. Barritt's Ginger Beer can be shipped directly to your home. And right here in Western Pennsylvania, Natrona Bottling Co. (724-224-9224) makes a nice ginger beer and a variety of other, old-fashioned soda pops that come in glass bottles.

If you can't find anything, but you're really determined to get that ginger kick, just use supermarket ginger ale, and mix it with a tiny bit of muddled ginger, the kind that garnishes your sushi. Works in a pinch.

PG TESTED

• 1 1/2 ounces gin
• 3 to 4 ounces of ginger beer
• Lime wedge

Mix the gin, ginger beer and the juice of half a lime over ice in a highball glass, then rim the glass with the lime. Try lemon in place of lime, or ginger ale in place of ginger beer.

-- Bill Toland

• 1 ounce vodka
• 1 ounce fresh lime juice
• 3 ounces ginger beer

In a highball glass (or a copper mug, if you have one), pour the three ingredients over ice. Garnish with lime. Add a dash of Angostura bitters if desired.

-- webtender.com

• Also called the Shandygaff.
• 1 part your favorite ale, chilled
• 1 part cold ginger ale or ginger beer

Pour the beer, then the ginger ale, together in a pint glass.

-- wikitender.com

Also known as the Mamie Gilroy.

• 2 ounces Scotch (blended)
• Juice from half a lime
• 4 ounces ginger beer

Squeeze the lime into a tall glass filled with ice, then add the Scotch and ginger beer. Turn it into a Whisky Melba by adding a dash of bitters and a muddled slice of ginger.

-- wikitender.com

One of the original North American highballs; like a Mamie Taylor, only with rye.

Sometimes known as the Rye Presbyterian.

• 2 ounces rye whiskey
• 3 to 5 ounces ginger beer
• Lime or lemon squeeze

Over ice, add juice, then pour the rye, then the ginger beer. Serve in a highball glass.