Gin Rickey
The Gin Rickey is gin, fresh lime juice and soda water over ice, and there is no sugar in it of any kind. That absence is the whole drink. It is what separates a Rickey from a Fizz, and it is why the gin matters more here than in almost anything else you can build. It is named after Colonel Joe Rickey, a Missouri lobbyist who drank his bourbon with lime and soda at Shoomaker's on Pennsylvania Avenue in 1880s Washington, consistently enough that the bartenders named the order after him. The gin version came shortly afterwards and overtook the original so completely that a Rickey now means gin unless you say otherwise. Rickey himself, by most accounts, thought the gin version was worse. He was outvoted. With no sweetener and only three ingredients, the freshness of the lime is the most consequential thing in the build. Squeezed to order it is bright and genuinely refreshing. Squeezed an hour earlier it is flat and slightly bitter, and nothing else in the glass can cover for it.
Glassware: Highball Glass
Garnish: Lime Wheel
Ingredients
60ml
A London Dry with enough juniper to hold its own without sugar to round the edges. In a three-ingredient build with no sweetener, the gin defines the drink entirely.
25ml
Squeezed immediately before building, and the single most consequential variable here. Pre-squeezed juice goes flat and slightly bitter, and the gin and soda cannot compensate for it.
100–125ml
Well chilled, added last, poured gently down the inside of the glass. The effervescence is structural in a drink this simple rather than decorative.
Instructions
Squeeze the lime juice immediately before building the drink.
Fill a highball glass to the top with large cubed ice.
Add the gin and the lime juice over the ice.
Stir once briefly to combine.
Pour the chilled soda water gently down the inside of the glass.
Stir once with a single upward lift of the bar spoon.
Squeeze a lime wedge over the surface, drop it in and serve immediately.
Expert Tip
If it tastes too austere, take out lime rather than adding sugar. Five millilitres less juice fixes most versions that have come out too sharp. Adding sugar does not fix a Rickey; it makes a Gin Fizz, which is a perfectly good drink and a different one. The gin choice matters more here than in almost any other build. There is no sweetener to round the edges and nothing else to hide behind, so a thin or heavily contemporary gin gives you lime and soda with a faint spirit note. A London Dry with real juniper is what the drink assumes. Pour the soda gently down the inside of the glass and stir once with a single upward lift. Carbonation is structural in a drink this bare, and stirring it out leaves the whole thing flat.
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
Colonel Joe Rickey was a Missouri-born lobbyist and political fixer who operated in Washington during the Gilded Age, when the capital's bar culture centred on establishments like Shoomaker's on Pennsylvania Avenue. His preferred drink was bourbon with lime and soda, requested consistently enough that the bartenders named it after him, and it was documented in the press of the 1880s as a specific drink rather than a generic combination.
The gin version emerged shortly afterwards, as bartenders found that gin's juniper and botanical complexity suited the dry, citrus-forward structure even better than bourbon had. It spread beyond Washington, appeared in the bar guides of the following decades, and displaced the bourbon original so thoroughly that it was largely forgotten. Rickey, by most accounts, was not pleased about it.
The Unsweetened Structure
A Gin Fizz shares this drink's base of gin, citrus and soda, and adds sugar syrup. That syrup softens the lime's acid, rounds the juniper, and produces something more approachable that asks less of the spirit.
Leaving it out produces a drink that is sharper, drier and far more dependent on the quality of the gin. That dependence is the Rickey's most demanding characteristic and its greatest virtue. A gin with genuine juniper and botanical complexity produces one of the most refreshing long drinks there is; a thin or neutral one produces lime and soda water with a faint spirit note behind it. The choice of bottle matters more here than in almost any other build.
Lime as the Foundation
Fresh lime squeezed immediately before use is not a preference in this drink. It is the only citrus, there is no sweetener to mask its degradation, and there is no foam or modifier to distract from it.
Lime juice loses its brightness within about half an hour of being squeezed and develops a slightly bitter, cooked quality. In a build this bare that is immediately obvious, and it decides whether the drink is worth finishing.
The lime wedge squeezed over the surface and dropped in is not decoration either. The oils in the peel release slowly as the drink sits, adding a faint aromatic complexity to the later sips. It costs nothing and it improves the glass.
Built for the Long Afternoon
The Rickey came out of a political culture where business was done informally over several hours, and the drink reflects that. It is not designed to impress. It is designed to be drunk steadily and to still taste good on the third one, which is a different brief from most cocktails and a harder one.
That is probably why something this plain outlasted both the era and the city culture that produced it.
How to Serve It
Built over ice in a highball, soda poured gently down the inside wall, a lime wedge squeezed and dropped in. Serve it immediately and serve it cold.
It asks for a good gin, a fresh lime and cold soda, and it returns considerably more than that costs. Warm weather and long afternoons are its natural habitat.
The Spirit
GinA flavour requirement rather than a method. The law asks only that juniper be the predominant taste and that the spirit reach 37.5%, which leaves everything else on the botanical bill to the distiller and permits a gin that was never redistilled at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Gin Rickey?
Gin, fresh lime juice and soda water over ice, with no sugar of any kind. That absence is the defining characteristic, and it makes the drink drier and more austere than the sweetened Gin Fizz built on the same base.
Who was the Rickey named after?
Colonel Joe Rickey, a Missouri lobbyist who drank his bourbon with lime and soda at Shoomaker's in 1880s Washington. The gin version that followed overtook the bourbon original completely; Rickey, by most accounts, was not pleased.
How is it different from a Gin Fizz?
The Fizz adds sugar to the same base, softening the lime and rounding the juniper. The Rickey leaves it out, so it leans entirely on the gin and on lime squeezed immediately before building the drink.
What gin should I use?
A London Dry with real juniper. There is no sugar to round the edges and nothing else in the glass, so the gin is the drink. A thin or heavily floral contemporary gin leaves you with lime and soda and a faint spirit note.
Master the Techniques
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Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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