Name: Old Acquaintance
Total time: 4 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 45 ml Gin; 22.5 ml Pink grapefruit juice; 15 ml Red bitter liqueur; 15 ml Lime juice; 15 ml Sugar syrup (2:1)

Old Acquaintance
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Serve in a Coupe glass

Ingredients:
1 ¹⁄₂ oz	Hayman's London Dry Gin
³⁄₄ oz	Pink grapefruit juice (freshly squeezed)
¹⁄₂ oz	Strucchi Red Bitter (Campari-style liqueur)
¹⁄₂ oz	Lime juice (freshly squeezed)
¹⁄₂ oz	Monin Pure Cane Syrup (65.0°brix, equivalent to 2:1 rich syrup)

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill a Coupe glass.
Prepare garnish of grapefruit zest twist.
SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
EXPRESS grapefruit zest twist over cocktail and use as garnish.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

Dry, bitter, very refreshing and mouth-puckering with grapefruit and gin bittered and coloured by red Italian bitters.

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Variant:

Old Friend
High Five
Ruby

History:

Adapted from a recipe by Henrik Buus Larsen, which in turn is a riff on the Old Friend cocktail.

More cocktails by Henrik Buus Larsen

Nutrition:

One serving of Old Acquaintance contains 195 calories

Alcohol content:

1.2 standard drinks
14.57% alc./vol. (14.57° proof)
16.4 grams of pure alcohol

More Aperitivo/aperitif cocktails
More Bittersweet (e.g. Negroni) cocktails
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More Summer cocktails

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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Showing 10 of 16 comments for Old Acquaintance.
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Ruth Harvey

1st April at 20:41

A good cocktail to introduce people to the joy of Campari!

Andy Rankin

20th February at 23:26

This is much better than Mainbrace, in my opinion (another gin / pink grapefruit drink). It enhances all of the natural features of the grapefruit - campari for the colour and bitterness, lime for the acid, and syrup for the sweetness.

Mike Gibb

11th January at 21:25

Campari and grapefruit work together so very well!
Very refreshing. This would be perfect for a summer lunch in the garden. Tagged as 'fruity' and 'summer'.

[Old Acquaintance]

Simon Difford

12th January at 12:20

Thanks, Mike. I've added additional tags, including summer.

Tuber Magnatum

16th December 2023 at 23:26

Love this cocktail! As noted above, it's a perfect balance of sweet and sour. I bet this would be amazing carbonated!

Yossi Burg

8th December 2023 at 08:27

Made a double brew in the Boston tins for myself and partner yesterday pre dinner. Outstanding- used Sipsmith and Campari. Cannot improve on perfection, however timing is important. Strain and pour directly into coupes before putting marinaded salmon in oven for 25 minutes- last sip completed and dinner never tasted better...

Frederic D.

5th May 2023 at 23:10

This is delicious. Bitter, but not overwhelmingly so. The botanicals from the gin come through (I used Drumshanbo Gunpowder Gin), and the overall feel is dry and very refreshing.

Alasdair MacDonald

6th November 2022 at 13:24

Had no Amaro the other night and had already squeezed the fruit so tried Bergamot liqueur; made for a much lighter fresher drink which was surprisingly pleasant. So much fun to be had around this basic combination.

Alasdair MacDonald

7th March 2022 at 18:17

A W is right, this is a fabulous cocktail and has become a House favourite. The recipe is robust enough to allow for variation according to availability/taste and experimentation. Love it.

Rollin Kuhn

14th January 2022 at 04:24

I made this but substituted Leopold Bros. Apertivo for the Campari, which increased the bitter level somewhat (as LBA is quite a bit more bitter and less sweet than Campari, which I'm not particularly a fan of). However, I like bitter elements in food and drink, and this combo, with the sweetness of the sugar syrup, balanced out perfectly! It's a surprisingly multi-layered taste experience, with the bitter, sweet, and sour swirling around each other to create a full-bodied mouth explosion.

dan huff

24th December 2021 at 03:14

I made with a gin aged in bourbon barrels. It really made for an interesting variation. The Smokey bourbon flavor to the gin complimented the bitters and grapefruit wonderfully. Loved it.

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