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 (2:1); 2 dash Orange bitters; 3 drop Saline solution 4:1

Gin Stone Sour
Jump to

Serve in an Old-fashioned glass

Ingredients:
1 ²⁄₃ oz	Hayman's Old Tom Gin
³⁄₄ oz	Lemon juice (freshly squeezed)
³⁄₄ oz	Orange juice (freshly squeezed)
¹⁄₂ oz	Monin Pure Cane Syrup (65.0°brix, equivalent to 2:1 rich syrup)
2 dash	Orange Bitters by Angostura
3 drop	Saline solution 4:1 (20g sea salt to 80g water)

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill an Old-fashioned glass.
Prepare garnish of orange slice wheel.
SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into ice-filled glass.
Garnish with orange slice wheel.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

As per the original 1917 recipe, old tom gin (rather than dry gin) is the essential ingredient in this orange-influenced Gin Sour.

View readers' comments

Variant:

Amaretto Stone Sour
Apricot Stone Sour
Bourbon Stone Sour
Hawaiian Stone Sour
Mezcal Stone Sour
New York Stone Sour
Rum Stone Sour
Scotch Stone Sour
Tequila Stone Sour
Vodka Stone Sour

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.

Nutrition:

One serving of Gin Stone Sour contains 166 calories

Alcohol content:

1.1 standard drinks
13.86% alc./vol. (13.86° proof)
15.3 grams of pure alcohol

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.