Main alcohol Gin Standard garnish Lime | Served Straight or on the rocks Drinkware Cocktail glass | |
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Ingredients One part sweetened Lime Juice, Four parts Gin Preparation Mix and serve. Garnish with a slice of lime. Similar Negroni, Vodka, French 75, Sidecar, Martini | ||
The gimlet (pronounced with a hard 'g' and not a soft 'j') is a cocktail made of gin and lime juice. A 1928 description of the drink was: "gin, a spot of lime, and soda." 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". This is in line with the proportions suggested by The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) which specifies one half Plymouth Gin and one half Rose Lime’s Juice Cordial. However, modern tastes are less sweet, and generally provide for at least two parts gin to one part of the lime and other non alcoholic elements (see recipes below).
Contents
The derivation of the name of cocktail is contested. It may be named after the tool for drilling small holes (alluding to its 'piercing' effect on the drinker), or after Surgeon Admiral Sir Thomas Gimlette KCB (1857-1943), who is said to have first added lime cordial to the daily gin tot of the men of the Royal Navy to help combat the ravages of scurvy on long voyages
A variant of the cocktail, the vodka gimlet, replaces gin with vodka.
A similar lime juice cocktail using rum instead of vodka or gin 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 in his "How's Your Drink" column in The Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition of August 4, 2006:
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:
The Bartender's Bible by Gary Regan lists the recipe as:
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:
The Richmond Gimlet, a variation that adds mint, was created in Eugene, Oregon in 2001 by bartender Jeffrey Morgenthaler. One version of the Richmond Gimlet recipe is:
Charles H. Baker quoted a recipe in "The Gentleman's Companion - an Exotic Drinking Book" (1939) of:
Take a big saucer champagne glass, put in 45 ml (1 jigger) either of dry or old Tom gin, 5 ml (1 tsp) gomme syrup or sugar, 2.5 ml ( 1⁄2 tsp) – to taste – of lime syrup or lime cordial.
Fill up with chilled plain water, add 1 ice cube and thin slice of big green lime. Don't use soda water, please.
He is also quoted from the book as saying:
"Why on earth this stroke of genius stands unheralded and unsung in this fair and allegedly free land of ours shall, to us, always be a mystery like who it is that designs expensive radio cabinets, why all cinema stars long to ruin themselves playing highbrow roles, and why good prize fighters want to write fiction. Throughout the whole swing of the Far East, starting with Bombay-down the Malabar Coast to Colombo; to Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, the Gimlet is just as well known as our Martini here. And from Bombay-down the Malabar Coast to Colombo; to Penang, Singapore, Hong Kong and Shanghai, gin was a form of a healing tonic for malaria! Limes healed scurvy creating the perfect medicinal cocktail.: The main thing in its flavour is that, unlike most cocktails, it is not "warming" in hot weather, and in fact is a good cooler. It is simple, without fancy fizzings, and is one to experiment with until the precise amount of lime cordial is found, to taste. . . . This last is a British invention based on a similar essence to Rose's Lime Juice-which comes in the slender decorative bottle we see back of most good soda fountains-but is not quite so pungent. Soda fountain lime syrup also would do in a pinch. We have approximated it with fine results by diluting it with equal amounts of water. "The following vodka gimlet recipe is from the novels of Stuart Woods:
Pour six ounces [180 ml] of vodka from a 750 ml bottle; replace with six ounces [180 ml] 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. The recipe is:
History
A recipe appears as early as Pamphlets on Biology: Kofoid collection - Page 129 in 1852 (dr goodeve chuckerbutty on cholera - ordered gin mixture)
"ordered gin mixture (gin, sugar, water, lime juice) every four hours."
Lime Cordial is called for as early as
Because I've not been there before: Being extracts from the ... by Oswald Lewis in 1929
"You take a claret glass, half fill it with gin and lime- juice in equal proportions (fresh limes with a little sugar added for choice, otherwise lime-juice cordial), fill it up with crushed ice, stir, and drink through a straw."
Gimlet himself appears in literature in
First report of the Royal commission on opium: with Minutes of ... - Page 95 by Great Britain. Royal Commission on Opium, Lakshmiswar Singh (maharajah of Darbhanga), Thomas Brassey Brassey (Earl) in 1894
"Surgeon-Major Gimlette, MD, called in and examined. Surg.-Maj. Gimlette, MV 7 Feb. 1894. Surg.-Maj. Gimlette"
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, a word also used figuratively to describe something as sharp or piercing. Thus, the cocktail may have been named for its "penetrating" effects on the drinker.
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. (Limes and other citrus fruit have been used by the Royal Navy for the prevention of scurvy since the mid-18th century.) However, neither his obituary notice in the BMJ, The Times (6 October 1943) nor his entry in Who Was Who 1941–1950 mention this association.