cocktail review no. 37 - Gimlet

It's May! Let's have a drink!

Yeah, I should've posted this yesterday, I know. I'm doing cocktail reviews on Fridays now, as per advice by Donna Hole. But you're all going to go out and drink on Saturday night too, right?

I've decided to try something different. I'm starting up a new tradition, here. I don't know how long it'll last, because I'm bound to run out of countries before I run out of drinks. But I've decided to "pair up" my random travel destinations with my cocktail reviews. Each shall pertain to the other in some pertinent way.

For example, you may notice that the most recent travel destination dealt with India. Gimlets, I understand, are thought to have originated in British India. It's a very British drink, in fact. It was likely first made with Rose's lime juice (a sweetened lime juice, bottles of which are now sold wherever respectable mixers can be found; I have some in my cupboard). Rose's, according to The Bartender's Bible, was conceived and created by a Scotsman named Lauchlin Rose in 1867. The stuff was so dang good that he sold it to shipping companies heading for the Far East as a remedy for scurvy. This had the added advantage of introducing Rose's lime juice all over the world. (That Lauchlin was a canny businessman, wasn't he?) Whether the settlers in India merely thought adding gin to the lime juice would make scurvy remedies go down easier, or the rowdy British soldiers wanted something sweet to add to their glass of gin...that much is unknown. We do know that gimlets were invented in India not long after the lime juice got there, and it's been one of the best darn highballs ever since.

• 2 ounces gin
• ½ ounces Rose's lime juice
• 1 lime wedge

Pour the gin and lime juice into a mixing glass half-filled with ice cubes. Stir well. Strain into a cocktail glass and garnish with the lime wedge.

This is a subjective recipe. You can use whatever proportion of gin to lime juice that you want. I make mine the way my bartender's school taught me: one-and-a-half ounces gin, a half-ounce of lime juice. Tastes a bit better that way, in my opinion. And I usually forgo the lime wedge. No need for overkill here.

Now, I'm fully aware that gin is...unique, let's say. Either people love it or they hate it. And the people who've never tried it (FIE on them, I say) probably won't take to it the first time around. So if you're going to try this, sip with caution. This is one of my favorite gin drinks, simply because it's not quite as intense as a martini, but not as fruity as a Chelsea Hotel or a maiden's blush. It's right in between, plain and simple, nice and easy. Gin with a bit of lime. The sweet sting of the lime juice perfectly offsets the more bitter herbal flavors of the gin, leaving the ice-cold bouquet. (I'm not educated enough to know if gin has a bouquet, but if it doesn't, it's got something just like it.) At the same time, those same bitter herbal flavors take the elevator down a floor and give the limey sourness a boost.

So what you have is yin and yang, a perfect rivalry of sweet and bitter flavors, not overpowering, not underdone, warring for elbow room on your olfactory glands and taste buds. This libation gives whiskey sours a run for their money. Trust me. "But don't take my word for it..." as LeVar Burton used to say.

And in case you were wondering, the word "gimlet" is the name for a hand tool used for drilling small holes in wood without splitting it. "Gimlet eyes" is a common idiom for people who have peepers that bore right through you. Take this gentleman, for instance:

Major General Smedley Darlington Butler, U.S.M.C. You'd better not laugh at his name. His right fist would come rocketing out of his grave and deck you where you stood. A genuine grade-A hardass, he was. He was born during the Indian Wars and died shortly before the U.S. entered World War II. He was the most decorated Marine in the world at the time of his death in 1940. He was awarded 16 medals, five for heroism. He was one of only 19 people who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor twice. He saw action in the Philippines, China, Central America and the Caribbean (during the Banana Wars) and in France in World War I.

Not for nothing was he known as "Old Gimlet Eye."

So sip on a gimlet and raise a glass to the old Devil Dawg. Or else.