Garnish:
Mint sprigs bouquet & seasonal berries
How to make:
1. Peel the zest from the lime prior to squeezing and express 3 zest twists into shaker (also drop spent zests into shaker).
2. Add sugar and lime juice.
3. MUDDLE lime zests with sugar and mix with lime juice until sugar is dissolved.
4. Add other ingredients, SHAKE with ice and strain into glass filled with crushed ice.
3 twist | Lime zest (peel) |
3 barspoon | Powdered sugar (white sugar ground in mortar and pestle) (or use 5ml of 2:1 sugar syrup per spoon) |
2/3 fl oz | Lime juice (freshly squeezed) |
1 1/2 fl oz | Gold rum (1-3 years old mellow light) |
1/2 fl oz | Orange Curaçao liqueur |
1/6 fl oz | Raspberry (framboise) sugar syrup |
1 dash | Angostura Aromatic Bitters |
Read about cocktail measures and measuring.

History:
Adapted from the first-known appearance of this recipe in Jerry Thomas' 1862 The Bar-tenders Guide and then repeated in his 1876 and 1887 editions. Jerry Thomas original recipe is for a built drink which does not call for Angostura Bitters. The White Lion first becomes a shaken drink with the addition of Angostura in Jacques Straub's 1913 Straub's Manual of Mixed Drinks (which stipulates 3 dashes Angostura Bitters and 3 dashes raspberry syrup).
Similar White Lion recipes to Jerry Thomas' specification appear in Leo Engel's 1878 American and Other Drinks and Harry Johnson's 1882 and 1888 Harry Johnson's Bartender's Manual, his 1888 edition with the added note "This drink is known for a great number of years in South America." [sic]
This cocktail also features in O.H. Byron's 1884 The Modern Bartender's Guide, George Kappeler's 1895 Modern American Drinks, and then morphs into a quite different White Lion in David Embury's 1948 The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.
White Lion.
Jerry Thomas, The Bar-tender's Guide, and Bon-vivant's Companion - A Complete Cyclopedia of Plain And Fancy Drinks (1st edition), 1862
(Use small bar glass.)
1½ teaspoon of pulverized white sugar.
½ a lime (squeeze out juice and put rind in glass).
1 wine-glass Santa Cruz rum.
½ teaspoon of Curaçao
½ do. Raspberry syrup.
Alcohol content:
- 1.4 standard drinks
- 22.82% alc./vol. (45.64° proof)
- 19.5 grams of pure alcohol
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