Gin Cocktails

74 recipes, page 1 of 4

This Field Manual holds 74 recipes built on gin, the second largest spirit group here after whiskey. Gin is a neutral spirit redistilled with botanicals, juniper first by law. That botanical load is why gin holds its shape against citrus and vermouth where vodka steps back.

The style of gin changes the drink more than the brand does. A London dry is juniper-forward and dry, and it is what a martini and a negroni assume. A contemporary gin leads with citrus or florals instead, which suits a collins or a spritz where the gin is the loudest thing in the glass. Old Tom is sweeter and predates both, and a Tom Collins was built for it.

Base Spirit

Difficulty Level

20th Century

The 20th Century is named not for the era but for a train: the 20th Century Limited, the streamlined express that ran New York to Chicago in sixteen hours of art deco swagger, red

Alaska

The Alaska is a two-ingredient stirred cocktail of considerable elegance and considerable potency. Gin and yellow Chartreuse in a ratio that has been debated since the drink first

Alexander

The Alexander is the cream family’s founding document, and it surprises most drinkers: the original is gin. Gin, white crème de cacao and cream in equal thirds, out of the

Army & Navy

The Army & Navy is a gin sour with orgeat in place of the sugar. That is the entire design, and it does what the same swap does in a Mai Tai: almond brings marzipan weight and a

Aviation

The Aviation is a gin sour with a sky in the glass. Hugo Ensslin published the original recipe in his 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks, the first known printed source: gin,

Banana Calling

The Banana Calling is Dandelyan’s tribute act. Cameron Attfield built it on London’s South Bank in August 2018, during the bar’s final season as the world’s number one, as a house

Bee’s Knees

The Bee’s Knees is a gin sour built on honey syrup instead of sugar, documented in the early 1920s and born of a practical problem. Prohibition gin was frequently terrible, and

Berry Sour

The Berry Sour takes the bones of Dick Bradsell's legendary Bramble and gives it the full sour treatment. Bradsell created the Bramble in 1984 at Fred's Club in London's Soho,

Bijou

The Bijou was created by Harry Johnson and published in his 1900 Bartenders' Manual, the name taken from the French word for jewel. The three base ingredients each represent a

Bradford

The Bradford is a shaken martini with nineteenth-century paperwork. Harry Johnson's Bartenders' Manual and its contemporaries record the Bradford à la Martini: the same gin,

Bramble

The Bramble was created by Dick Bradsell at Fred's Club in London in 1984, making it one of the few genuinely modern cocktails to hold a permanent place in the classical canon.

Breakfast Martini

The Breakfast Martini began, by its creator’s cheerful account, with a domestic scene: Salvatore Calabrese’s wife insisting he eat something before work, one spoon of orange

Bronx

The Bronx was once the third cocktail in America, behind only the Martini and the Manhattan in the pre-Prohibition order of things. It is credited to Johnnie Solon of the

Cardinale

The Cardinale is a Negroni with the sweet vermouth taken out and the Campari cut back, which makes it drier, paler and considerably more austere than the drink it descends from.

Casino

The Casino belongs to the Aviation's family tree and arrives with a named author: Jacob A. Didier printed it in his 1909 The Reminder, Old Tom gin with maraschino, orange bitters

Clover Club

The Clover Club was the house drink of a Philadelphia institution: a club of journalists, lawyers and industrialists who met at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel from the 1880s to

Comte de Sureau

The Comte de Sureau is a Negroni that has been rebalanced rather than merely re-flavoured. Elderflower liqueur takes sweet vermouth's place, and the Campari drops to a quarter

Corpse Reviver No. 2

The Corpse Reviver No. 2 appeared alongside its brandy sibling in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, accompanied by his now-famous warning that four consumed in quick

Cosmonaut

The Cosmonaut is a gin sour sweetened with a spoonful of raspberry jam. Sasha Petraske built it at Milk & Honey in New York, and the name is a joke: the Eastern Bloc answer to the

Cucumber & Elderflower G&T

The Cucumber & Elderflower G&T is a gin and tonic with two English garden moves made on it: fifteen millilitres of elderflower liqueur, and a long cucumber ribbon pressed against

Cucumber & Mint Gin & Tonic

Cucumber and gin is a pairing that has gone from eccentric to obvious inside about twenty years, and this is the version where the cucumber is in the tonic rather than floating in

Earl Grey MarTEAni

The Earl Grey MarTEAni is the cocktail renaissance drinking tea: gin infused with Earl Grey, shaken with lemon, sugar and egg white into a sour wearing a scented foam. Audrey

Eastern Standard

The Eastern Standard is a cucumber and mint gin sour served over ice, and it is the house cocktail of Soho House, poured to the same specification in every club the group runs.

Eastside

The Eastside is the modern classic that tastes like a garden: gin, lime, mint and cucumber, shaken cold and strained silky, out of the early-2000s New York revival and most often

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