The Gimlet
A common wisdom in this age of reborn cocktails is to fix your drinks with the finest, freshest ingredients, eschewing premade liquids and powdered mixers. One drink that may pose the exception to that rule is the Gimlet—essentially gin and lime cordial—as it was not invented with fresh fruit in the first place.
The romantic picture is of British naval officers inventing the drink with fresh fruit to ward off scurvy in the 19th century with the lime’s vitamin C content. (The drink’s etymology is disputed, but one claim is that it was named for a Royal Navy doctor, Sir Thomas Gimlette, who encouraged the practice.) But the image of sailors squeezing limes while decks pitched at sea may be countered with the idea that British ships were already stowing a bottled cordial called Rose’s Lime Juice, a concentrate preserved with sugar.
The idea that the easy way of making a Gimlet is best comes in the recipe the Savoy Cocktail Book printed in 1930 (½ Burrough’s Plymouth gin, ½ Rose’s Lime Juice, stirred.)Further justification comes in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye (1953) when the Gimlet enthusiast Terry Lennox complains about fresh-squeezed pretenders: “A real Gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats Martinis hollow.”
He has a point. Fresh lime juice and sugar is not nearly tart enough. It’s the concentrate that gives the drink its bite.
Two caveats, however. Rose’s now contains high-fructose corn syrup, sodium metabisulfite preservative and blue food dye. For those who protest such chemical insertions the excellent Meehan’s Bartender Manual suggests making your own cordial, using, not lime juice, but the zest from a dozen limes steeped in simple syrup.
The other problem with the above recipe is too much lime juice. The Gimlet is better enjoyed in the elegant proportions of a modern Martini, i.e. two to four parts gin. Chandler’s sleuth, Philip Marlowe, one-upped that and added bitters.
