London Calling
London Calling is 45ml of London Dry gin, 15ml of fino sherry, 15ml of fresh lemon juice, 15ml of sugar syrup and two dashes of orange bitters, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, finished with an expressed grapefruit twist. About 2.1 UK units. Difford’s Guide dates the original to 2002, by Chris Jepson at Milk & Honey in London, made for a Drinks International competition. CLASS magazine says it became a regular on the Milk & Honey menu and then appeared on cocktail lists the world over. CLASS notes that the name is shared with the classic album by the Clash. Structurally it is a gin sour with a little fino added. At 15ml the sherry does not taste like sherry. It dries the finish, adds a faint salty, nutty note and makes the lemon seem sharper, while the orange bitters link the wine to the gin’s citrus botanicals.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Grapefruit twist
Ingredients
45ml
A London Dry gin at 40% ABV or a little more. Juniper and citrus botanicals hold their shape against the sherry; a soft, floral gin lets the fino take over.
15ml
Fino at about 15% ABV, fridge-cold and opened within the week. A tired bottle tastes flat, and the drink loses its dry, salty finish. Manzanilla is the closest swap.
15ml
Squeezed the same day. Level with the syrup, as in most sours; the fino adds dryness rather than acid.
15ml
One to one sugar syrup, by weight. Equal to the lemon, which balances the sour; the sherry then pulls the finish dry.
2 dashes
Two dashes. Orange peel sits between the wine and the gin’s citrus botanicals; in our view the clove in Angostura would cover the fino.
Instructions
Squeeze the lemon juice the same day and chill a coupe.
Add the gin, fino, lemon juice, sugar syrup and orange bitters to a shaker.
Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into the chilled coupe.
Express a grapefruit twist over the surface and drop it in.
Our version
Measured to the spec Difford’s Guide adapts from Chris Jepson’s 2002 drink: 45ml gin, 15ml each of fino, lemon and sugar syrup, two dashes of orange bitters and a grapefruit twist. Recorded as ours because no listed authority prints it at these measures; Difford’s uses 50ml of gin.
Source: our own specification. Last checked 10 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Open the fino fresh and keep it in the fridge. In our experience, once opened it fades like a white wine, and after about a week the salty, bright edge has gone. Half bottles make sense if you do not drink it often. Make it once without the sherry. The plain gin sour that results shows exactly what the 15ml of fino adds: a drier, longer finish and sharper lemon. Express the grapefruit twist and drop it in. Its oil gives the nose a bitter citrus note that the lemon in the glass does not.
Behind the London Calling
Flavour Profile
Milk & Honey, 2002
Difford’s Guide says the cocktail was adapted from a recipe created in 2002 by Chris Jepson at Milk & Honey in London, originally for a Drinks International competition. CLASS says it became a regular on the Milk & Honey menu and a bartender favourite, with appearances on cocktail lists the world over in the two decades since.
In our view its timing is what makes it interesting: fino was not a usual bar ingredient in 2002, and sherry in cocktails became far more common over the following decade. Difford’s Guide calls the London Calling a much-copied contemporary classic.
Sherry as Seasoning
Fifteen millilitres of fino in a drink of about 90ml before dilution is a seasoning measure. It is too little to taste as wine. What it adds is dryness and a faint saltiness from flor, the yeast that fino ages under.
Salt in food makes other flavours more distinct, and fino behaves similarly here. The lemon reads sharper and the juniper clearer. Leave it out and you have a good, ordinary gin sour.
A Balanced Sour Underneath
The sour itself is evenly balanced, with lemon and sugar syrup at 15ml each. The fino barely moves that balance, because it brings very little acid or sugar. It changes the finish instead, which is why the drink tastes drier than its measures suggest.
Beside a Gin Sour
Our Gin Sour beside London Calling
Gin
- Gin Sour
- 60ml London Dry
- London Calling
- 45ml London Dry
Lemon juice
- Gin Sour
- 25ml
- London Calling
- 15ml
Sugar syrup
- Gin Sour
- 20ml
- London Calling
- 15ml
Fino sherry
- Gin Sour
- None
- London Calling
- 15ml
Bitters
- Gin Sour
- None
- London Calling
- Two dashes orange
Egg white
- Gin Sour
- 15ml, optional
- London Calling
- None
Serve
- Gin Sour
- Over fresh ice, rocks glass
- London Calling
- Up, chilled coupe
UK units
- Gin Sour
- About 2.4
- London Calling
- About 2.1
| Element | Gin Sour | London Calling |
|---|---|---|
| Gin | 60ml London Dry | 45ml London Dry |
| Lemon juice | 25ml | 15ml |
| Sugar syrup | 20ml | 15ml |
| Fino sherry | None | 15ml |
| Bitters | None | Two dashes orange |
| Egg white | 15ml, optional | None |
| Serve | Over fresh ice, rocks glass | Up, chilled coupe |
| UK units | About 2.4 | About 2.1 |
The drink has been reworked as well as copied. The Banana Calling keeps the gin, fino and lemon and adds banana liqueur, and its name only works because the original is well known.
How to Serve It
Up, in a chilled coupe, before food. The grapefruit twist is expressed over the top and dropped in, and its oil gives the nose a bitter citrus note the drink itself does not have.
For the banana version, try the Banana Calling; for gin and lemon without the sherry, a Gin Sour.
Make it at home
The Spirit
GinGin is a spirit flavoured with juniper berries. Under the retained Regulation (EC) 110/2008, juniper must lead the taste, the floor is 37.5% ABV, and the route the flavour takes sets the grade: plain gin, distilled gin or London gin. Our recipes count it at 40%, and it carries the Martini, the Negroni and the Gin and Tonic.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
Who created London Calling?
What does the fino sherry do?
Can I use a different sherry?
Why a grapefruit twist?
Is it named after the Clash?
How strong is London Calling?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “London Calling” (secondary source: “Adapted from a recipe created in 2002 by Chris Jepson at Milk & Honey in London … Originally made for a Drinks International Magazine competition … a much-copied contemporary classic”; riffs include the Banana Calling).
- CLASS, “Classic cocktails: the story of the London Calling” (trade magazine: the drink dates back to 2002, Jepson submitted it to a competition in CLASS’s sister title Drinks International; a regular on Milk & Honey’s menu and a bartender favourite, on cocktail lists the world over in the subsequent two decades; name “in common with the classic album by The Clash”).
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Banana Calling
A Banana Calling is 40ml of London Dry gin, 10ml of banana liqueur, 7.5ml of fino sherry, 20ml of fresh lemon juice and 7.5ml of rich sugar syrup, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled Nick & Nora glass, with a dried banana chip pegged to the rim. About 1.9 UK units. Difford’s Guide, a secondary source, says Cameron Attfield created the recipe it adapts at Dandelyan in London in August 2018, as a riff on Chris Jepson’s London Calling of 2002. Our measures follow Difford’s Guide’s adaptation of Attfield’s recipe. The London Calling is gin, fino, lemon, syrup and orange bitters; the Banana Calling halves the fino, adds the banana, raises the lemon and drops the bitters. The banana is meant to be hard to find. At 10ml it rounds out the middle of the sour, and the fino’s dry, salty edge keeps it from turning sweet. Most people taste a fuller gin sour and only find the fruit once the name points to it.
Gimlet
A Gimlet is 60ml of gin and 22.5ml of lime cordial, stirred with ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe, with a lime wheel. About 2.4 UK units. Gin and cordial only, with no fresh juice: the preserved lime is what makes it a Gimlet. The usual story ties it to the Royal Navy. The Oxford Companion says the Merchant Shipping Act of 1867 required British merchant ships to carry lime juice against scurvy, and that Lauchlan Rose patented an alcohol-free way of preserving lime juice the same year. Harry’s ABC of Cocktails calls a Gimlet of equal parts Plymouth gin and Rose’s lime cordial “a very popular beverage in the Navy”, and Cigar Aficionado quotes Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye of 1953: a real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s lime juice and nothing else. Ours is drier, a little under three to one. Cordial tastes rounder than fresh lime, with a cooked, marmalade edge, and the stir keeps the drink clear and silky.
White Negroni
A White Negroni is 45ml of London Dry gin, 30ml of Lillet Blanc and 20ml of Suze, stirred over one large cube in a rocks glass for 20 to 30 seconds, with a lemon twist expressed over the top and dropped in. About 2.7 UK units. Punch reports that Wayne Collins, a London bartender, made the first ones on a hot summer night in 2001 near Bordeaux, where he and Nick Blacknell, then director of Plymouth Gin, were in town for Vinexpo. Rummaging in a local liquor store for the ingredients, they bought French bottles instead, Punch says: Suze for the bitter, Lillet Blanc for the wine. Collins chose the name, he told Punch, because it would be easy to communicate to the trade. The shape survives and every flavour moves. Suze is bitter from gentian root, earthy where Campari is orange peel, and Lillet is lighter and more honeyed than sweet vermouth. Suze is also the louder of the two bitters, which is why ours trims it to 20ml rather than pouring three equal measures.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026