British Royal Navy, 1860s.
| 2 oz · 60 ml | GIN | 40 % |
| ¾ oz · 22 ml | LIME JUICE | |
| ½ oz · 15 ml | SIMPLE SYRUP |
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
Variants: Vodka Gimlet.
1 oz taken as 30 ml in the metric column.
| Pre-batch | 3.25 oz mixed with ice, 0.8 oz of it pure alcohol |
|---|---|
| Melt | Shaken: +20 % of the pre-batch, +0.65 oz of water |
| Served | 3.25 + 0.65 = 3.9 oz in the glass |
| Strength | 0.8 ÷ 3.9 = 20.5 % ABV as served |
| Ethanol | 0.8 oz × 29.57 ml × 0.789 g/ml = 19 g · about 131 kcal from the alcohol alone |
FROM GIN
The pine note in juniper berries, and the reason gin tastes like a forest. Co-distilled with the spirit during production. Found in actual pine trees, rosemary, basil, and a good London Dry. The "Christmas tree" smell of gin and the smell of a forest floor share a single molecule.
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FROM LIME · the lemon aroma
Lemon's defining note: technically a mix of two geometric isomers (geranial and neral) that read as the same aroma to the nose. Lemon peel, lemongrass, lemon verbena, and Indian chai all carry it. In cocktails it's what a lemon twist contributes that lemon juice can't: the volatile expressed from the oil glands, not the acid from the pulp.
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Gin, lime and sugar. Alpha-pinene from juniper and citral from fresh lime make a two-compound cocktail, with no barrel aging to muddy the profile. The gin's botanicals lead.
Lauchlan Rose patented a way to preserve lime juice with sugar instead of alcohol in 1867, the year the Merchant Shipping Act required lime juice against scurvy on British merchant ships. Mixed with naval officers' gin, the result became the Gimlet, named, by one account, for the boring tool that broached the lime-juice cask.
