Old Friend
An Old Friend is 45ml of London Dry gin, 22.5ml of fresh grapefruit juice, 15ml of Campari and 7.5ml of elderflower liqueur, shaken hard for 10 to 12 seconds and double strained into a chilled coupe, with a lemon twist. About 2.3 UK units. Difford’s Guide says Jim Meehan, of PDT in New York, created it in 2012 for the cocktail menu at Chef’s Club in Aspen, Colorado; Cocktail Virgin Slut, quoting Meehan’s Bartender Manual, calls it a Chef’s Club event there. It is gin and Campari with grapefruit in the middle, and grapefruit and Campari share a bitterness, so the fruit carries the bitter note forward and the Campari only needs 15ml. The elderflower is a seasoning. A small measure takes the hard edge off the grapefruit pith and adds a faint floral note; more than that, and the liqueur takes the lead. Our measures and our lemon twist are Meehan’s, as Cocktail Virgin Slut gives them from his Bartender Manual; Difford’s Guide now uses 10ml of elderflower liqueur and a grapefruit twist.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Lemon twist
Ingredients
45ml
A London Dry at 40% ABV with clear juniper. Campari and grapefruit are both loud, and a soft contemporary gin gets lost between them.
15ml
At the 25% on LWC’s listing. Half a Negroni’s measure, because the grapefruit already brings bitterness; at 30ml it would flatten the fruit.
7.5ml
St-Germain, at the 20% on LWC’s listing, or another elderflower liqueur. 7.5ml is Meehan’s measure and Difford’s Guide now uses 10ml; 7.5ml keeps the flower in the background.
22.5ml
Squeezed the same day. Pink or ruby for a rounder drink, white for a sharper one. About half a large grapefruit gives 22.5ml with some to spare.
Instructions
Squeeze the grapefruit juice the same day and chill a coupe.
Add the gin, grapefruit juice, Campari and elderflower liqueur to a shaker.
Fill with cubed ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into the chilled coupe.
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
Source: its creator's published specification (Jim Meehan, Meehan’s Bartender Manual (2017); measures as Cocktail Virgin Slut and Kindred Cocktails give them, ounces taken as 30ml; method ours). Last checked 19 October 2026.
Expert Tip
Squeeze the grapefruit the same day. With only four ingredients, carton juice tastes cooked and flat. Pink or ruby fruit gives a softer, rosier drink; white grapefruit gives a sharper, more bitter one. Measure the elderflower with a jigger, never by eye. At 7.5ml it rounds the grapefruit without being noticed. At 15ml the blossom leads and the gin disappears behind it. Double strain. Grapefruit throws fine pulp, and pulp floating on a coupe looks careless and catches on the lip.
Behind the Old Friend
Flavour Profile
Jim Meehan, Aspen, 2012
Difford’s Guide dates the Old Friend to 2012, for the cocktail menu at Chef’s Club in Aspen, Colorado, and Cocktail Virgin Slut says Jim Meehan made it for a Chef’s Club event there, as a “distant cousin” of the whiskey-based Old Pal in gin sour format.
It is built like an aperitif: low on sugar, bitter at the back and bright at the front. The small, exact measures are typical of his drinks, and each one does a single job.
Grapefruit Carries the Bitterness
Campari and grapefruit taste related. Much of Campari’s bitterness reads as pith and much of its sweetness as peel, which is why the Jasmine can combine Campari and lemon and leave most drinkers tasting grapefruit.
The Old Friend pours the fruit itself, so Campari only has to season it. That is why 15ml is enough where a Negroni takes 30ml. In our view the drink tastes of Campari without being as demanding as most drinks that contain it.
Elderflower at 7.5ml
Elderflower liqueur is sweet and perfumed, and at any generous measure it leads. In our view it does the job a barspoon of sugar would, rounding the pith, with a faint floral note that also softens the Campari.
Meehan’s measure is 7.5ml, and Difford’s Guide now gives 10ml. At 7.5ml, in our experience, most people cannot name the flower but notice the drink is smoother. At 15ml the drink smells of a garden in May.
Ours, the Published Version and the Jasmine
The Old Friend as we make it, which matches Meehan’s original as Cocktail Virgin Slut gives it, beside Difford’s Guide’s current version and our Jasmine
London Dry gin
- Our Old Friend
- 45ml
- Difford’s Guide’s Old Friend
- 45ml
- Our Jasmine
- 45ml
Citrus
- Our Old Friend
- 22.5ml grapefruit
- Difford’s Guide’s Old Friend
- 22.5ml pink grapefruit
- Our Jasmine
- 22.5ml lemon
Campari
- Our Old Friend
- 15ml
- Difford’s Guide’s Old Friend
- 15ml
- Our Jasmine
- 7.5ml
Second liqueur
- Our Old Friend
- 7.5ml elderflower
- Difford’s Guide’s Old Friend
- About 10ml elderflower
- Our Jasmine
- 7.5ml Cointreau
Garnish
- Our Old Friend
- Lemon twist
- Difford’s Guide’s Old Friend
- Grapefruit twist
- Our Jasmine
- Lemon twist
UK units
- Our Old Friend
- About 2.3
- Difford’s Guide’s Old Friend
- About 2.4
- Our Jasmine
- About 2.3
| Element | Our Old Friend | Difford’s Guide’s Old Friend | Our Jasmine |
|---|---|---|---|
| London Dry gin | 45ml | 45ml | 45ml |
| Citrus | 22.5ml grapefruit | 22.5ml pink grapefruit | 22.5ml lemon |
| Campari | 15ml | 15ml | 7.5ml |
| Second liqueur | 7.5ml elderflower | About 10ml elderflower | 7.5ml Cointreau |
| Garnish | Lemon twist | Grapefruit twist | Lemon twist |
| UK units | About 2.3 | About 2.4 | About 2.3 |
How to Serve It
Serve it up, in a frozen coupe, before food and early in the evening. The lemon twist is expressed over the top and dropped in, so the first thing you smell is citrus oil rather than more grapefruit.
It is a useful drink for someone who says they do not like bitter drinks. The bitterness arrives behind the fruit, not in front of it.
For Campari and lemon without the fruit, make a Jasmine; for grapefruit and vodka over ice, a Greyhound.
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.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is in an Old Friend cocktail?
Who created the Old Friend?
Can I use less elderflower, or none?
Pink or white grapefruit?
How does it compare with a Jasmine?
Why a lemon twist and not grapefruit?
How strong is an Old Friend?
Sources.
Correct as of 19 October 2026.
- Difford’s Guide, “Old Friend” (secondary source: adapted from a recipe created by Jim Meehan in 2012 for the cocktail menu at Chef’s Club in Aspen, Colorado; Jim’s original calls for 7.5ml (¼oz) elderflower liqueur, amended in October 2020 to twice that and in June 2022 to 10ml; 45ml gin, 22.5ml pink grapefruit juice, 15ml red bitter, 10ml elderflower liqueur; grapefruit zest twist; 2.4 units).
- Cocktail Virgin Slut, “old friend” (blog post of 8 January 2018 transcribing Meehan’s Bartender Manual: 1 1/2 oz Beefeater Gin, 3/4 oz grapefruit juice, 1/2 oz Campari, 1/4 oz St. Germain, lemon twist; created for a 2012 Chef’s Club event in Aspen as a “distant cousin” of the whiskey-based Old Pal in gin sour format).
- Kindred Cocktails, “Old Friend” (records Jim Meehan, 2012 Chef’s Club event, Aspen; reference Meehan’s Bartender Manual (2017); 1 1/2 oz gin, 1/2 oz Campari, 3/4 oz grapefruit juice, 1/4 oz St. Germain; lemon coin).
- LWC, “Campari 70cl” (UK wholesaler listing: Alcohol By Volume 25%).
- LWC, “St-Germain 70cl” (UK wholesaler listing: Alcohol By Volume 20%).
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Jasmine
A Jasmine is 45ml of London Dry gin, 22.5ml of fresh lemon juice, 7.5ml of Cointreau or another triple sec and 7.5ml of Campari, shaken hard and double strained into a chilled coupe with a lemon twist. About 2.3 UK units. It is pale pink, sharp and lightly bitter, and most people who taste it say grapefruit. Punch, a secondary source, says Paul Harrington made it in 1993 at Townhouse, a restaurant in Emeryville, California, for his friend Matt Jasmin, and misspelled the name. He started from the Pegu Club, used Campari in place of its Angostura and lemon in place of its lime. Punch says his 1998 book, Cocktail: The Drinks Bible for the 21st Century, launched it beyond the San Francisco area. The measures are Harrington’s, as Punch publishes them: a quarter of an ounce, about 7.5ml, each of Cointreau and Campari. Two small measures of orange liqueur and bitter liqueur against the lemon are what make the drink read as grapefruit.
Greyhound
A Greyhound is 50ml of vodka and 120ml of fresh grapefruit juice in a highball full of ice, stirred once and garnished with a grapefruit wheel. About 2.0 UK units. Salt half the rim and the same drink becomes a Salty Dog. Without the salt, nothing softens the grapefruit’s bitterness, and that bitterness is the point: this is a sharp, bracing drink, nearer an aperitif than a Screwdriver. Difford’s Guide’s earliest Greyhound recipe, from Stanley M. Jones’s 1977 Complete Barguide, is a Salty Dog without the salt, made with vodka. The Oxford Companion says some Salty Dog recipes call for gin, and the Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 prints a Colonial Cocktail of dry gin, grape fruit juice and maraschino. Gin at the same 50ml gives a drier glass with more perfume.
Old Pal
An Old Pal is 45ml rye whiskey, 22.5ml Campari and 22.5ml dry vermouth, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled Nick and Nora glass, and finished with a twist of lemon. About 2.8 UK units. It is the drier cousin of the Boulevardier. Swap the Boulevardier’s sweet vermouth for dry and its bourbon for rye, and the Campari tastes more bitter, the whiskey more peppery, and the drink leaner. It belongs before dinner. Difford’s Guide and the Internet Archive scan of the book place its first appearance in Harry MacElhone’s Barflies and Cocktails in 1927, in a chapter by Arthur Moss that has ‘Sparrow’ Robertson give the recipe: equal thirds of Canadian Club, “Eyetalian” vermouth and Campari. Boothby, an Australian drinks site, finds French vermouth in the 1930 ninth edition of Harry’s ABC of Mixing Cocktails, and the dry version is the one that stuck.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 19 October 2026