Gimlet

Revision as of 11:16, 6 April 2006

The Gimlet is a Cocktail consisting of Gin, and Sweetened Lime Juice.

Common Recipes

Recipe#1: Cocktaldb.com

• Shake with ice and strain
• 1/3 Lime Juice Cordial
• 2/3 gin
• Shake
• It is the practice to-day to add soda water if required
• Serve in a cocktail glass (4.5 oz)

In 1867 a Scottish merchant named Lauchlin Rose patented a process for preserving lime juice without the use of alcohol (pre 1867 shipments of lime juice were typically preserved using demerara rum). This development combined with the Merchant Shipping Act of 1867 which mandated that British merchant ships carry dailly rations of lime juice for the crew to combat scurvey led to the spread of Rose's Lime Juice cordial throughout the British Empire. 
Given the mandated lime juice ration, along with the dailly ration of spirits (rum was still a staple, though gin was also common and favoured by many officers) its was inevitable that the two liquids would eventually find their way into the same cup. 
Credit for mixing the first juice with gin is typically given to a surgeon, Sir Thomas D.Gimlette, who joined the navy in 1879 and retired as surgeon general in 1913. Popular lore has it that Gimlette, an officer, induced his messmates to take their anti-scorbutic by mixing it with gin, and the new concoction was named in his honor. A related theory posits that Gimlette was concerned with his mens heavy drinking, so he diluted their gin with lime juice. While this likely would have done little to reduce their consumption, it did make for a more flavourful beveredge, and the new drink was duly anointed with his name. A rival theory suggests that the drink was named for the corkscrew- like tool that was reportedly sent with lime juice containers to British colonies in the late eighteenth century.

• Source, history and character of the Gimlet, Paul Clarke, Mixologist the journal of the american cocktail. Mixellany 2005