Gimlet
A bad story and a good drink
- Method
- Shaken
- Style
- Classic
- Glass
- Coupe
- Time
- 5 min
Ingredients
- 60mlGin
No Gin? London Dry Gin — juniper forward, and what these recipes assume if you have not got a preference · Old Tom Gin — sweeter and rounder, the older style · Navy Strength Gin — a lot stronger, so save it for a clear afternoon
- 22.5mlLime Juicefreshly squeezed
- 15mlSimple Syrup, 1.5:1
No Simple Syrup? Demerara Syrup — richer, faintly molasses — adds colour and body, which most drinks welcome
- Garnish
- Lime twist
Make it well
Shaken, properly.
Squeeze the limes now. This is a three ingredient drink and bottled juice will be the only thing you can taste in it.
Add the gin, lime juice and syrup to your .
Add ice and for 10-12 seconds.
into a chilled coupe.
Garnish with a lime .
On the palate
On the nose it's lime and juniper and not a great deal else, which is exactly right. On tasting it's sharp, cold and clean, the syrup only there to stop the lime being unpleasant rather than to make the drink sweet. The gin's botanicals come through far more clearly than they do in a G&T, because there's no tonic sitting on top of them, so this is a good drink for finding out what your gin actually tastes like. Serve it properly cold. A lukewarm Gimlet is a sad thing.
Where it came from
The Gimlet exists because of a law. The Merchant Shipping Act of 1867 required British ships to carry lime or lemon juice for the crew, and in the same year Lauchlan Rose patented a way of preserving lime juice without alcohol. Rose's Lime Cordial went to sea, and gin was already there. The name usually gets pinned on Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Desmond Gimlette, a naval surgeon said to have added gin to the lime ration to help it go down. It's a lovely story and it doesn't survive a look at the dates: Gimlette was born in 1857, ten years before any of the above, and the claim appears nowhere in his obituaries. The other explanation is duller and more likely, a gimlet being the small tool you bore into a barrel with, and the drink having roughly that effect on you. The original is gin and Rose's, half and half. What's here is the fresh lime version, which is a different drink and a better one.
Keep pouring
If you like the Gimlet, try these
The bartender’s note
One drink, one story, one bottle worth buying.
Thursday evening, so you have time to shop. No more than that.