Being thrown for a loop…

No you can’t just change it to lime juice and sugar

The Gimlet. A drink I was reluctant to do and one I have been very dismissive of since, let’s face it, Gin and lime cordial isn’t going to make anything you want to drink unless you are an alcoholic toddler.

Let’s get the history out of the way first. It will be brief since anybody who has been following will be familiar with this story. Sailors were dying by the hundreds of thousands, possibly millions due to a disease called scurvy until somebody discovered that citrus fruit stopped it in its tracks. So, ships started carrying fruit and this is one of the reasons that the Americans call the British Limeys!

But citrus fruit doesn’t last forever so you need to preserve it for longer journeys and you could do that by mixing large amounts of sugar with the fruit juice and boiling it, creating a syrup or in this case a lime cordial.

The British Naval officers drank Gin, they would add it to the lime cordial to make it taste better, or vice versa, who knows.

They called the combination of lime cordial and Gin a Gimlet.

Lime cordial is no longer a popular drink and hasn’t been for at least 50 years, so the number of manufacturers seemed to dwindle such that the Gimlet effectively became defined as Gin and Rose’s lime cordial, one of the last surviving brands.

My reluctance to make this drink also made me not want to buy a bottle for the single use that would prove me right, so with a belief that you could improve it with fresh ingredients, I headed off down a rabbit hole of how to make lime cordial. As luck would have it, I’m not the first to have asked that question, as way back in 2018 a cocktail blogger called Jeffery Morgenthaler effectively created lime cordial from what was basically sugar and a lime superjuice many years before Kevin Kos of Cocktail Time fame had made brough superjuice to the masses.

The tricky part of Rose’s lime cordial he writes is that it is much more sour than lime juice and sugar and even when he tried to add lime zest he didn’t get anywhere near what he wanted. The answer, just as the superjuice people discovered 5 years later was to add citric acid.

Jeffery Morgenthaler’s Lime Cordial - with minor modifications by me to make it last longer.

• 250g sugar

• 240 ml hot water

• 45 ml fresh lime juice - about 1.5 medium limes

• 8g freshly grated lime peel - about 1 medium lime

• 25g citric acid

Instructions

• Combine all of the ingredients in a pan and heat until all the sugar and citric acid has dissolved and on to a gentle simmer.

• Pour into a heat resistant blender or allow to cool first.

• Blend on medium for 30 seconds to a minute depending on how powerful your blender is.

• Strain through a cheesecloth.

• Bottle and refrigerate.

Armed with Jeff’s lime cordial recipe and a single lime I made myself 250ml of lime cordial and set about making the Gimlet.

I was still convinced it would be dreadful, but, I am happy to report that I was completely wrong!

The freshly made cordial has a brightness from the fresh lime and a sour hit that really makes this drink something special. It is more sour than one of the traditional sour cocktails, but because it is just 2 ingredients, the Gin isn’t hidden and the underlying Gin flavours shine through.

I may not be making this exactly as it is intended given my home made cordial, but I wholly recommend it since my first drink was swiftly followed by a second which I enjoyed just as much.

Gimlet

• 60ml Gin - choose one that you like and that will go with lime as the flavours come through with this drink

• 30ml Lime Cordial

Instructions

• Combine both ingredients in a stirring glass with ice and stir to chill and dilute.

• Pour into a suitable glass, I am using a “nick and nora” glass in this picture

• Garnish with lime zest.

It’s rhubarb time of year so I’m off to make some rhubarb syrup to experiment with but whatever your weekend plans are, I hope you enjoy the drink or whatever else you have planned.