Although summer is officially over and fall has begun, down here in sunny Florida we still need drinks that are nice, cool, and easy to make all year round. It doesn’t get much simplier than the mighty Gimlet.Thought to have been created by the British Royal Navy sometime around 1876 when England required that its sailors received lime juice everyday to ward off scurvy, some British genius decided it would be much easier to get their recommended daily allowance if the lime juice was mixed with gin. Other trivia about the drink include that it was drunk by fictional hard-boiled detective Phillip Marlowe and Ernest Hemmingway immortalized the drink in his story “Francis Macomber.”
I do hold to the notion that if a cocktail recipe calls for juice, then if at all possible the juice should be freshly squeezed. (For me, this also applies to flavored vodkas. For example, instead of lemon-infused vodka, I’d much rather use straight vodka and fresh lemon juice. It just makes the drink taste so much better and it really doesn’t take much to juice a lemon or lime.) However, the Gimlet is the rare exception to the rule. From all sources I’ve consulted, not only does the recipes call specifically for Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice, some actually warn against using fresh lime juice because it turns the drink too tart. In fact, along with the lime juice, the recipe calls for simple syrup. (To make the syrup, just use a 1:1 ratio, sugar to water. Heat over a medium high heat until the sugar is dissolved (it won’t take long).)
So here’s the recipe for this ultra-simple and refreshing drink:
2 oz gin
1/2 oz Rose’s lime juice
1/4 to 1/2 oz simple syrup
Shake the concoction in a shaker with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with a lime wedge or serve it on the rocks. One more thing, many people out there make the Gimlet with vodka. To me, that takes away some of the subtle complexity that gin brings but to each their own.
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