Casino

Aviation

An Aviation is gin, maraschino, lemon and a little crème de violette: 45ml gin, 15ml maraschino liqueur, 15ml fresh lemon juice and one bar spoon of crème de violette, shaken hard and double strained into a chilled coupe, with a cherry dropped in. The measures are the International Bartenders Association’s. The violette gives the drink its pale blue-violet colour. Hugo Ensslin, bar manager at the Wallick Hotel in New York, published the original formula for the classic Aviation in his 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks, the Oxford Companion says. In 1930 the Savoy Cocktail Book printed it without the violette, and many bartenders followed that version. Keep the violette to a bar spoon: more turns the drink soapy and purple. A glass holds about 2.4 UK units.

Last Word

A Last Word is 22.5ml each of gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino liqueur and fresh lime juice, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled Nick & Nora or coupe. About 2.9 UK units. The measures are the IBA’s; the cherry or lime twist is ours. The Oxford Companion says the drink first appears in print in the Detroit Athletic Club News in 1916, on a menu at 35 cents, a high price then. Ted Saucier’s Bottoms Up of 1951 prints the recipe, quoting a club source who says Frank Fogarty, a vaudeville monologist, introduced it there about thirty years earlier. In 2003 Murray Stenson put it on the menu at the Zig Zag Café in Seattle, from where it spread, the Companion says. Four strong flavours at equal volume, and none takes over. Chartreuse brings herbs and heat, maraschino cherry and a bitter almond edge, lime the acid, and gin holds them together.

Gin Sour

A Gin Sour is 60ml of London Dry gin, 25ml of fresh lemon juice and 20ml of sugar syrup, shaken hard with ice for 10 to 12 seconds and strained over fresh ice in a rocks glass, with a lemon wheel and a cherry. About 2.4 UK units. Add 15ml of egg white for a silkier version, dry shaken first; it is raw, so leave it out for anyone allergic to egg. It is the plain sour with gin as the spirit. Difford’s Guide says Jerry Thomas’s 1862 bar guide has a Gin Sour, and the frame of spirit, citrus and sugar runs under most gin classics since: the White Lady sweetens it with orange liqueur, the Bee’s Knees with honey, the Clover Club with raspberry. With only three ingredients the gin has nowhere to hide. A juniper-led London Dry gives the classic reading; a citrus or floral gin changes the drink more than any change of measure.