Bernice

Vodka Gimlet

A Vodka Gimlet is 60ml vodka and 22.5ml lime cordial, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe, then finished with a lime wheel. This is the Gimlet with vodka in place of gin, at the same measures, and comes to about 2.4 UK units. With no juniper, the cordial leads. The drink tastes of preserved lime: rounder than fresh juice, sweet at the edges and faintly bitter from the peel. Both bottles have to be good, because the glass holds nothing else. The Oxford Companion puts the name in print in 1922, with gin, and says vodka eventually supplanted gin in many late-twentieth-century Gimlets. For a sharper drink, shake the vodka with fresh lime and syrup instead.

Daiquiri

A Daiquiri is 60ml white rum, 20ml fresh lime juice and two bar spoons of caster sugar. Stir the sugar into the rum and lime in the shaker until it dissolves, then add ice, shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strain into a chilled coupe. About 2.4 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures, and its method dissolves the sugar first too. The name belongs to Daiquirí, an iron-mining district and beach near Santiago de Cuba. Difford’s Guide credits Jennings Stockton Cox, an American engineer who led one of the first mining parties into Cuba’s iron-ore country after the Spanish-American War of 1898; the Oxford Companion has him making or supervising the first Daiquiri in 1896, and a Santiago bartender naming it in 1908. Difford’s says Constantino Ribalaigua Vert of Havana’s El Floridita made the frozen version famous. With three ingredients and no liqueur or bitters, the Daiquiri hides nothing. A flat rum, tired lime or undissolved sugar shows in the first sip.

Cosmopolitan

A Cosmopolitan is 40ml of citrus vodka, 15ml of Cointreau, 15ml of fresh lime juice and 30ml of cranberry juice, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, with an orange twist. About 2.2 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s. The Oxford Companion says the Cosmopolitan has a confused and contested history, that most claims lack supporting evidence, and that the recipe served worldwide was most likely formulated in 1988 by Toby Cecchini at the Odeon in New York, with Absolut Citron, Cointreau, fresh lime and cranberry, after a cruder San Francisco drink of the same name that the San Francisco Chronicle called “a Kamikaze with cranberry juice” in 1987. Cecchini told Punch the same year, 1988. Under the colour it is a sour: vodka, orange liqueur and lime, with cranberry for tint and a little extra acid. Made with fresh lime and served very cold, it is tart and dry, a long way from the sweet pink drink of its reputation.

White Lady

A White Lady is 40ml of London Dry gin, 30ml of Cointreau and 20ml of fresh lemon juice, shaken hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, with lemon peel expressed over the top. About 2.8 UK units. Those are the IBA’s measures, and there is no egg white in them. The name is older than the recipe. Difford’s Guide, a secondary source, says Harry MacElhone gave it in 1919, at Ciro’s Club in London, to a drink of brandy, crème de menthe and Cointreau. The gin, Cointreau and lemon version is credited to his rebuild at Harry’s New York Bar in Paris in 1929, though Difford’s says most dispute that, and The Savoy Cocktail Book printed it in 1930, also without egg. Egg white came later: Difford’s Guide finds the earliest recipe with it in The Sacramento Bee of 1936. It makes a softer, foamed drink, given here as a variation. The plain version is sharp and dry, the gin in front and the orange behind it.