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Gin Stone Sour

Name: Gin Stone Sour
Total time: 4 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 50 ml Old Tom gin; 22.5 ml Lemon juice; 22.5 ml Orange juice; 15 ml Sugar syrup 'rich' (2:1); 2 dash Orange bitters; 3 drop Saline solution 4:1

Difford’s Guide

Discerning Drinkers (12)

Measurements in:

Serves:

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Ingredients
1 2/3 fl oz	Hayman's Old Tom Gin
3/4 fl oz	Lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
3/4 fl oz	Orange juice (freshly squeezed)
1/2 fl oz	Sugar syrup 'rich' (2 sugar to 1 water) 65.0°Brix
2 dash	Orange Bitters by Angostura
3 drop	Saline solution (20g sea salt to 80g water) or merest pinch of s

How to make

Glassware

Serve in an Old-fashioned glass

Prepare

Select and pre-chill an OLD-FASHIONED GLASS.
Prepare garnish of orange slice wheel.

Method

SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into ice-filled glass.

Garnish

Garnish with orange slice wheel.

Flavour Profile

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

Health & Nutrition

Nutrition:

One serving of Gin Stone Sour contains 166 calories

Alcohol content:

1.2 standard drinks
13.86% alc./vol. (27.72° proof)
16.5 grams of pure alcohol

History

The first known recipe for a "Stone Sour" appears in Jacques Straub's 1914 book Drinks, but that first gin-based Stone Sour is without the orange juice that in later decades became part of this cocktail's DNA. Straub's Stone Sour is also differentiated from later renditions by its being frappé.

Stone Sour
1 jigger Plymouth gin.
Juice of 1 lemon.
Sweeten with plain syrup.
Frappé well; strain into goblet filled with fine cracked ice. Serve.
acques Straub, Drinks, 1914

The earliest Stone Sour recipe with orange juice is in Tom Bullock's 1917 book The Ideal Bartender, and this is credited with being this cocktail's turning point.

Stone Sour
Use a tall, thin glass; fill with fine Ice.
½ pony Lemon Juice.
1/2 pony Orange Juice.
2 dashes Rock Candy Syrup.
1 jigger Old Tom Gin.
Leave in Ice; stir well and serve.
Tom Bullock, The Ideal Bartender, 1917

Thanks to Prohibition, the Stone Sour faded into obscurity until its resurrection in the 1980s, making a notable appearance in Vincent Sardi's 1988 Sardi's Bar Guide, which says, "A stone sour is, of course, a sour with the addition of orange juice." Sardi's Bar Guide has the recipe for seven different "Stone Sours", each distinguished by a different base spirit or liqueur, but none of them are gin-based Stone Sours. By the 1980s, bourbon or amaretto were the most fashionable bases for a Stone Sour.