“A gimlet is technically lime cordial and gin,” explains Toby Cecchini, owner of Long Island Bar in Brooklyn, “so that’s the technical definition, but it’s not a very tasty drink.”
Specialist Feature
Talia Baiocchi Founder and editor-in-chief of Punch magazine.
Toby Cecchini He is co-owner of The Long Island Bar in Brooklyn, New York, and is the creator of the bar’s signature drink, the Gimlet, a highly-acclaimed drink made with lime-ginger cordial served on the rocks.
St. John Frizzell He is co-owner of the Sunken Harbor Club and Gage & Tollner in Brooklyn, where he serves gimlets on the rocks.
Haley Traub He is the bar manager of two bars in Manhattan, Attaboy and Good Guy’s, which specialize in creating classic cocktails.
It first appeared in written form in a 1922 book by Harry McElhone. Harry’s ABC’s of Cocktail MakingThe Gimlet is made with just two ingredients: Plymouth gin and Rose’s lime juice cordial. Tom Bullock’s previous recipe states: The ideal bartender (1917) describes a more rigorous Gimlet-like drink called the Gillette Cocktail, which substitutes fresh lime juice and a barspoon of fine sugar for the Rose Cocktail.
I went to a recent event looking for the best tasting gimlet. Blind TastingBut it quickly became clear that the prevailing interpretation of the drink today is somewhere between these two approaches, resulting in a cocktail that’s firmly in sour territory: gin-forward but not as dry as Brock’s interpretation, and made with fresh lime juice and a sweetener (often a homemade lime cordial, but not always).
This is the previous Gimlet blind tasting in 2018some of the submitted recipes were based on Rose’s, demonstrating loyalty to the drink’s technical definition, which has since faded (not surprisingly, some aspiring bartenders have attempted to create their own version). Making a better, less artificial clarified lime cordial to replace the Rose. But today, a fresh Gimlet is the best.
“I’ve always thought of the gimlet as belonging to the shaken category because what our guests expect is a punch of gin and a punch of fresh citrus,” says Haley Traub, bar manager at Ataboy and the Good Guys in New York City. To find the best gimlet, Traub joined me, Cecchini, St. John Frizzell (co-owner of Gage & Tollner and Sunken Harbor Club in Brooklyn), and Punch magazine editor-in-chief Talia Baiocchi. Veteran Long Island bartender KJ Williams tailored the drinks to each bartender’s request.
The one-two punch Traub was looking for was exactly what the judges described as Milady’s bar manager Izzy Tulloch’s winning recipe. Her Gimlet It’s made using 2 ounces of Tanqueray No. 10 gin as a base, three-quarters of an ounce each of syrup and lime juice, then shaken in the tin with lime slices to release the oils from the peel. Legal ShakeLike all of the submitted recipes, the drink was served on the rocks, not on the rocks. “This is the only drink that has the gin punch I was looking for,” Traub said, describing it as “clean and free of off-flavors.” Frizzell agreed: “This is what we were looking for: a good gin punch with a hint of lime.”
Second place went to Kim Vo of Dutch College in Baltimore. Her Recipes The cocktail is made with 1.5 ounces of Hayman’s Navy Strength Gin, 1 ounce of fresh lime juice, and 0.5 ounce of thick syrup. Vo garnished the drink with a lime twist, resulting in what Cecchini described as “the most captivating aroma.”
Coming in third place was Tom Macy, who took top honors in the last Gimlet blind tasting. His Recipes Similarly, you can get close to a Regal Shake by adding 1/4 of a lime (cut into eighths), 2 ounces of Tanqueray gin, 0.5 ounce of lime juice, and 3/4 ounce of syrup to a shaking tin.
None of the three winners used lime cordial at all, despite it appearing in half of the recipes submitted – further evidence that we live in the age of the fresh gimlet. As Cecchini says, you could call a drink with gin and lime cordial a gimlet, “but it’s like a two-legged stool; it’s hard to balance.”
