I honestly think you can use 3.5-4cm of cucumber instead and leave the core in. I've tried them both side by side and it didn't make much difference except less waste.

Overall it's a very "Fresh Cocktail". The subtle mint and pine from the Mastiha plays well with the cucumber. I don't get a ton of gin but it doesn't taste thin so it's obviously doing some work. It's a bit sweet for my taste so I lowered it to 5cl simple syrup and it still was pretty sweet. I actually think this could be served with 3cl soda water over ice as a long drink with Greek food and it would be amazing.

If you want to try a variation which i think is both tasty and incredibly good looking, I would suggest to cut half of a cucumber in small pieces, leave them in the shaker, shake them along with all the other ingredients and ice ( i usually add 10ml of gin) and pour them in the glass. You'll notice the "seeds" of the cucumber that look almost as ice crystals into a well-made white lady. The resulting colour is green, and, I'd suppose, more cucumber-forward. I found it excellent.

A very solid drink. Definitely cucumber and mastiha forward. The lemon juice isn't really detectable, but brings underlying freshness. The gin here is, somewhat unusually, playing more of a supporting role. I used Plymouth and its rounder, softer character worked really well with the other ingredients. Not an everyday sipper for me, but it went really well with my chicken/tzatziki/pita bread dinner.

Fresh indeed, the combination and balance of flavours is remarkable. As symbiotic as it gets. Tried it with Hendricks.