Gimlet (cocktail)

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Gimlet
A vodka gimlet with mint
Type Cocktail
Primary alcohol by volume
Served straight or on the rocks
Standard garnish

Lime

Standard drinkware
Cocktail glass
Commonly used ingredients
  • Four parts gin
  • One part sweetened lime juice
Preparation Mix and serve. Garnish with a slice of lime

The gimlet is a cocktail made of gin or vodka and lime juice. A 1928 description of the drink was: "gin, a spot of lime, and soda."[1] The description in the 1953 Raymond Chandler novel The Long Goodbye stated that "a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's lime juice and nothing else."[2]

For the vodka gimlet, replace gin with vodka. Bartenders will sometimes request your liquor preference: gin or vodka.

A very similar cocktail using rum instead of vodka or gin—as well as fresh lime juice—is the daiquiri.

Preparation

David A. Embury gave a gimlet recipe (called a Gin Sour) in The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks (3rd Ed., 1958), calling for an 8:2:1 gin/lime (or lemon) juice/simple syrup ratio plus garnish. Eric Felten essentially repeated this recipe in his "How's Your Drink Column" in The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition of August 4, 2006:

  • 2 oz. gin or vodka
  • 1/2 oz. lime juice
  • 1/4 to 1/2 oz. simple syrup
  • Garnish with a lime

William L. Hamilton gave this recipe in his "Shaken and Stirred" column in The New York Times on September 15, 2002: A gimlet served at the Fifty Seven Fifty Seven Bar at the Four Seasons Hotel consists of the following, shaken with ice:

  • 4 oz. vodka
  • 1/2 oz. fresh lime juice
  • 1/2 oz. Rose's lime juice
  • lime wedge for garnish

The Bartender's Bible by Gary Regan lists the recipe as:

  • 2 oz. Plymouth Gin
  • 1/2 ounce Rose's lime juice
  • Garnish with lime wedge

Regan also states "since the Rose's product has such a long and impressive history (which predates the gimlet), I am inclined to think that Rose's was the ingredient that invented the drink."

The New New York Bartender's Guide by Sally Ann Berk lists the ratio of gin to Rose's lime juice as 3:1.

The recipe on Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice label:

  • 1 oz. Rose's Lime Juice
  • 1½ oz. vodka, rum, or gin
  • Shake with ice and serve

The Richmond Gimlet, a variation that adds mint, was created in Eugene, Oregon in 2001 by bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler.[3] One version of the Richmond Gimlet recipe is:

  • 2 oz. Tanqueray No. 10 gin
  • 1 oz. fresh lime juice
  • 1 oz. simple syrup
  • large sprig mint
  • Shake with ice, strain into a chilled glass

The following vodka gimlet recipe is from the novels of Stuart Woods:

Pour six ounces of vodka from a 750 ml bottle; replace with six ounces Rose's Sweetened Lime Juice (available from nearly any grocery), add a small amount of water for ice crystals, shake twice and store in the freezer overnight. Pour into a martini glass and serve straight up. The glass will immediately frost over. With this recipe, no cocktail shaker is required and the cocktail is not watered down by melting ice. You may use even the cheapest vodka, and no one will ever know.

The Carnaby Gimlet, a variation with natural spring water, was created at the Carnaby Club, Rimini, Italy.[4] The recipe is:

  • 1  oz. gin (suggested with Tanqueray or Bombay Sapphire)
  • 1/4  oz. fresh lime juice
  • 1/2  oz. Sweet Lime Syrup
  • top with cold still water
  • Serve with ice and lime slice in old fashioned double shot tumbler

Etymology

The word "gimlet" used in this sense is first attested in 1928. The most obvious derivation is from the tool for drilling small holes, whose name is also used figuratively to describe something as sharp or piercing. Thus, the cocktail may have been named for its "penetrating" effects on the drinker.[5]

Another theory is that the drink was named after British Royal Navy Surgeon Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Gimlette KCB (1857-1943), who allegedly introduced this drink as a means of inducing his messmates to take lime juice as an anti-scurvy medication.[6] (Limes and other citrus fruit have been used by the Royal Navy for the prevention of scurvy since the mid-18th century.[7]) However, neither his obituary notice in The Times (6 October 1943) nor his entry in Who Was Who 1941–1950 mention this association.

See also

References

  1. ↑ D. B. Wesson, I'll Never Be Cured III
  2. ↑ Terry Lennox in Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye
  3. ↑ "Eugene Weekly: Minty Fresh". 
  4. ↑ "Carnaby Club Rimini". 
  5. ↑ "Online Etymology Dictionary". 
  6. ↑ Covey Crump, a 1955 dictionary of Royal Navy slang by Commander A. Covey-Crump, RN, a former Naval Assistant to the Chief of Naval Information.
  7. ↑ Lind, James (1753). A Treatise on the Scurvy. London: A. Millar. 

External links

The Wikibook Bartending has a page on the topic of: Gimlet
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