A Gimlet is a simple cocktail with a difficult explanation. Traditionally composed of gin and preserved lime juice (Rose’s Lime Juice was the standard for around a century), originally with the common addition of soda water, the Gimlet also has a vodka-based version, as well as variations made with fresh lime juice and sugar or with homemade lime cordial in lieu of Rose’s.
The Gimlet’s genesis began with the passage of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1867, which mandated that British merchant ships stock rations of lime juice to prevent scurvy; the same year, Lauchlan Rose (1829–1885) of Edinburgh patented an alcohol-free process of preserving lime juice, and Rose’s Lime Juice Cordial was soon widely distributed. By the 1870s, Rose & Co. was advertising its product as a “delicious drink agreeable in all seasons” when combined with spirits. In 1900, the company even went so far as to launch a bottled mix of its lime juice and ten-year-old scotch whisky. However, by then gin had already begun to assert itself as the natural complement to the preserved juice.
The first time the combination has a name attached is in 1917, with the somewhat garbled “Gillette Cocktail, Chicago Style” recorded by Tom Bullock, which has fresh lime juice and Old Tom gin (the “Chicago style” remains unexplained). Both the current name and the Rose’s appear in 1922 in Harry’s ABC of Cocktails; there, equal parts Rose’s and Plymouth gin are called for (the latter being the appropriate choice for a drink identified as “a very popular beverage in the Navy”). See Bullock, Tom (Thomas Washington); and McElhone, Henry “Harry.”
The cocktail’s ratio dried out considerably in coming decades, and as with the Martini, vodka eventually supplanted gin in many late-twentieth-century Gimlets (with that, the soda water, which had helped to cut the lime cordial’s sweetness, disappeared from the drink). A sordid staple in literature—Ernest Hemingway, David Mamet, and Raymond Chandler all put Gimlets in the hands of fictional characters, typically predators or their prey—the Gimlet is frequently freshened up in twenty-first-century bars, with fresh lime juice and simple syrup replacing the mass-market cordial. Bartenders including Toby Cecchini in New York and Todd Appel in Chicago devised fresh lime cordial recipes to replace Rose’s, and Jennifer Colliau prepared a complex Navy Gimlet for the Interval at Long Now bar in San Francisco, using lime oleo-saccharum and clarified lime juice in a base of navy-strength gin.
Recipe: Shake 60 ml gin (London dry or Plymouth) and 20 ml lime cordial with ice, and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Top with 30 ml chilled sparkling water, if desired.Note: This recipe is adapted from the listing for the Gimblet in the Savoy Cocktail Guide, 1930. That book also lists a recipe for the Gimlet, listed as an equal-parts composition of gin and lime cordial served on the rocks, but the Gimblet listing more closely resembles the traditional serving of a Gimlet.
Clarke, Paul. “History and Character of the Gimlet.” Mixologist: The Journal of the American Cocktail 1 (2005): 59–74.
Cecchini, Toby. “Raw Lime Cordial.” New York Times, 2011 http://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015312-raw-lime-cordial (accessed September 30, 2016).
McElhone, Harry. Harry’s ABC of Cocktails. London: Odhams, [1922].
By: Paul Clarke