Urban Bar: Gin Gimlet

As I write Urban Bar, I try to balance best practices from professional mixologists with the practical realities of the home bartender. I know of both homekeeping and bartending colleagues who would disagree, but I maintain that outside of profit, there should be little distinction between the home and professional bars. If the homekeeper learns what the professional knows, that not only makes the visit to the home bar the quality experience that it should be, it enhances the appreciation of the professional’s domain. There are a thousand tricks that skilled and experienced professional bartenders employ, and the customer who understands and appreciates them is the customer who recognizes the bartender’s art form. But then, that is why professional bartenders who cavil at having the tricks of their trade revealed do so, for every reason as understandable if unlikely as not wanting to risk unemployment to as disgraceful as wanting to be the only expert in the room. That last is especially dishonorable, because it is just exactly the opposite of what a bartender who respects their own profession should be: discerning, knowledgeable and generous.

The symbiosis between bartender and drinker is not to be underestimated. In fact, it is fundamental to every bartender’s job description. The experience is enhanced mutually when the person the bartender is mixing for knows what they should be tasting. It keeps the bartender focused on their craft and, as the glasses start accumulating, keeps the drinker generous. Mostly, though, it builds connection, and that really is the point of hospitality in general and cocktails in specific. 

Among the ways that mixers and drinkers assess each other is by the understanding of the rules of drinking and the nuances of drink. If you are curious regarding this phenomenon, try the following experiment. The next time you settle onto a bar stool whether in a home or in public, answer the question of “what’ll ya have?” with “two fingers of your best Scotch.” A good bartender will know that there is a game and will respect the playing of it, and so will volley right back either by pouring from the top shelf to see if you know what you’re getting into or pouring from the mid-shelf for the same reason. There may be a couple of rounds of this and it doesn’t have to be Scotch, it can be anything from tequila to Champagne to beer. Once the two of you have navigated the playing field together, you will have established one of the key relationships of contemporary living: one with a great bartender. And please note: “great,” among bartenders, does not by definition include “famous” or even “trying to be famous.” If you find a bartender who likes to show off what a great bartender they are, with the expectation that tv cameras should be recording their every move, go drink somewhere else.

Just as drinkers and bartenders bring their own characters to the bar, so does each drink. It is the bartender’s obligation to interpret that character and deliver the interpretation into a glass. This is why an off-handed or indifferent pour of anything at a bar, from the most complicated concoction to the simplest splat from the bar gun, is a gesture of disrespect for bartending, for drinkers, for the bar itself. Though there is some room to experiment out of respect for the palate you are pouring for, none of us should ever mix with anything other than respect for what’s in the bottle, to be expressed by what lands in the glass. Bottle to glass to palate is a journey, and that journey is one of expressing whatever qualities the drink is meant to convey.

We understand this readily with such drinks as wine and coffee (remember that baristas are bartenders), but it is at its trickiest with liquor. That is why ratio in mixed drinks is crucial – witness a failed long shot like a DOA Corpse Reviver, or the dreaded wet martini. This is also why for some liquors, such as vodka, you shouldn’t taste the liquor at all (which is why, dear purists, a vodka martini isn’t a martini), whereas some liquors, such as rum, are the setting for other flavors and should be detectable.

And that brings us to one of the most pivotal liquors in a bar set-up: gin. This spirit infused with botanticals displays a complex character that requires attention and finesse to express. The flavors of gin always center around juniper berries but from there can spin in any and every direction that the distiller fancies, provided that the ingredients are botanical and built upon juniper. Gin should be smooth but complex on the palate. It should also be very aromatic - a marker of the quality of your gin is the botanicals you can detect by smell alone.

Though gin began in the middle ages as an herbal medicine, today it is one of the most popular spirits in the world. Though popular, gin is individualistic, and while there are several styles of gin, there are four categories of it. Juniper-flavored spirits are made by distilling fermented grain mash and then redistilling that product with botanicals to produce aroma and flavor. Gin is a neutral grain spirit flavored with botanical additives but not redistilled directly utilizing the plants themselves. Distilled gin is made by redistilling agriculturally-based ethyl alcohol with botanicals in which juniper berries must be predominant. London Gin is a distilled gin made by very specific methods and ingredients to achieve specific alcohol levels during both distillation and redistillation. In America, you can look for those terms on the label of your gin as an indicator of its origins, strength and to some degree, flavor. As a rule, American gin is 80 proof.

Gin is fundamental to cocktails fundamental to the bartender’s art, from the simple gin and tonic to the demanding martini. In our urban bar we have a documented love of, philosophy about and practice regarding martinis; click here to learn how to build a martini. A martini expresses gin’s smoothness and complexity through surgical precision, but it has a gunslinging relative: the gimlet. A gimlet is a class of drinks in which gin or vodka is mixed with lime juice. If you introduce bourbon and water you’re on your way to a rickey, and if you substitute rum, you’re on your way to a daiquiri. Back in gin territory, you can introduce berries into your gimlet as we have done with the raspberry gimlet recipe provided below. At its purest, a gimlet is a gin drink, in which the liquor’s bracing botanicals slice through sweet-tart lime juice like the bullets from Philip Marlowe’s gat. The gimlet is symbiosis expressed through juxtaposition to arrive at the embrace of complexity. Built with skill and attentiveness, the gimlet is one of the truly classic gin cocktails.

Gin Gimlet

Favorite gins in our urban bar include Hendricks, New Amsterdam, Tanqueray, Sapphire and Seagram’s, but for Gimlets we like to use Aviation. Simple syrup is a basic item for your home bar; the version below is infused with lime. A muddler is an important tool for your urban bar; they are widely available, including here. The recipes below build two cocktails each.

Classic Gin Gimlet

Two shots top shelf distilled gin

¾ shot lime simple syrup (see below)

Tonic water

One lime  

1. Place a drop of food-safe produce cleaner in your palm. Rub your hands together and then rub the lime with the cleaner.
2. Rinse your hands and the lime under cool water.
3. Use a clean bar towel to dry the lime.
4. Cut the lime into wheels 1/4 inch thick.
5. Fill two double old-fashioned glasses with ice.
6. Fill a cocktail shaker 1/2 full with ice.
7. Measure the gin and simple syrup into the shaker.
8. Cap the shaker and shake vigorously until the top of the shaker is too cold to touch.
9. Remove the cap from the shaker and distribute the cocktail between the two glasses.
10. Top each cocktail with a 2-count pour of tonic water. Swirl the drink in the glass.
11. Top the cocktail with a lime wheel.
12. Serve immediately.  

Raspberry Gimlet

1. Measure 1- 1-/2 ounces fresh, cleaned raspberries into a mixing glass. Pick out four of the best berries and set aside.
2. Add one lime wheel to the berries in the mixing glass.
3. Top the lime-raspberry mixture with one teaspoon superfine sugar.
4. Use a muddler to mash the lime, sugar and berries together.
5. Measure the gin and lime simple syrup in the same measures for the classic Gimlet into the mixing glass. Use a bar spoon to mix the ingredients together, no ice.
6. Fit the top of the mixing glass with a strainer and strain the cocktail into two glasses prepped per step 1 above. It is desireable if some raspberry-lime muddle escapes through the strainer into the cocktail.
7. Top each cocktail with two berries and a lime wheel.
8. Serve immediately.  

Lime Simple Syrup

1. Measure 1/2 cup granulated sugar into a clean saucepan. Slowly pour 1/3 cup filtered water into the pan.
2. Place a drop of food-safe produce cleaner in your palm. Rub your hands together and then rub two medium Persian limes with the cleaner.
3. Rinse your hands and the limes under cool water.
4. Cut the limes into four wheels each, not wedges.
5. Use a citrus press to press the limes over the pan containing the sugar-water mixture. You may have to press some lime pieces twice or even three times; that is okay.
6. Drop one or two of the spent lime wheels into the pan.
7. Turn the burner to low.
8. Use a wire whisk to carefully stir the mixture until the sugar dissolves into the water. It should be thick and clear with no sugar crystals. If crystals appear, stir until they dissolve.
9. Turn off the burner and let the syrup cool.
10. Pour the syrup through a sieve into a clean bottle and attach a spout to the bottle. Discard the lime pieces.
11. Refrigerate after using.

Resources

Urban Home Blog's Guide to Cocktail Parties (barware, bar tools, liquor)

Urban Home Blog's Guide to Kitchen Tools (citrus press)