Name: Improved Gin Cocktail
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 1 swath Lemon peel; 50 ml Gin; 5 ml Gomme syrup; 2.5 ml Maraschino liqueur; 2 dash Boker's bitters; 1 dash Absinthe

Improved Gin Cocktail
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Serve in a Nick & Nora glass

Ingredients:
1 swath	Lemon peel
1 ²⁄₃ oz	Hayman's London Dry Gin
¹⁄₆ oz	Gomme syrup
¹⁄₁₂ oz	Luxardo Maraschino liqueur
2 dash	Boker's bitters
1 dash	La Fée Parisienne absinthe

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill a Nick & Nora glass.
Prepare garnish of lemon zest twist.
EXPRESS oils from lemon zest twist into shaker and discard.
Add other ingredients and SHAKE with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
EXPRESS lemon zest twist over surface of the cocktail, rub lemon zest oils on rim, and discard.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

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Improved Gin Cocktail lifestyle thumbnail

Review:

Fabulously complex and spirit-forward. A delicious cocktail on which to sip and contemplate. Some may want to stir this cocktail but it's better shaken. Expressing lemon oils over the surface enhances the aroma and clears the bubble slick produced by shaking.

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Variant:

Improved Brandy Cocktail
Improved Whiskey Cocktail
Improved Holland Cocktail

History:

The Gin Cocktail first appears in Jerry "The Professor" Thomas' 1862 The Bar-Tender's Guide & Bon Vivant's Companion with this "Improved" version debuting in his 1876 The Bar-Tender's Guide 2nd Edition. This also includes "Improved" versions of the Brandy Cocktail, and Whiskey Cocktail, which are all what we today call Old Fashioned cocktails. In the words of Jerry Thomas, they have been "improved by moistening the edge of the cocktail glass with a piece of lemon." Such "improved" American cocktails from the period are also distinguished by using European ingredients, particularly maraschino liqueur and/or absinthe.

111. Gin Cocktail.
(Use small bar glass.)
3 or 4 dashes of gum syrup.
2 do. Bitters (Bogart's).
1 wine-glass of gin.
1 or 2 dashes of Curaçao.
1 small piece lemon peel; fill one-third full of fine ice
shake well, and strain in a glass.

243. Improved Gin Cocktail.
Use the same method and ingredients as in No. 241 substituting gin for the brandy.
Jerry Thomas, The Bar-tender's Guide, 1876

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Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

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G. M. Genovese

1st February at 18:23

I didn't even employ the lemon peel garnish - which is a make-or-break addition to too many cocktails I've tried - and I'm absolutely gobsmacked by how astonishingly good this was. How the hell do all of those little ingredient accents add up to a full-flavored affair?!? Out of this world!

John CARR

15th June 2024 at 13:43

Superb, tho did take a couple of goes, dependent on today’s ingredients. My bottle of bokers turned out to be past its best, so used abbots instead. I fancied the professor’s use of orange, so one dash orange bitters. Cut the sugar to 2.5ml for my taste. Lemons weren’t great so added twist to shaker and glass. Tried with both Luxardo and Pierre Ferrand. Both worked really well. Genuine old time flavour. Sophisticated and complex and one to experiment with 🙂.