History

This classic English cocktail dates back to at least the early 1800s and was so popular at the time that it is frequently referred to in novels and periodicals from the time. In Sir Walter Scott's 1823 novel St Ronan's Well, the character Captain MacTurk says, "Sir Binco, I will beg the favour of your company to the smoking-room, where we may have a cigar and a glass of gin-twist; and we will consider how the honour of the company must be supported and upholden upon the present conjuncture."

William Makepeace Thackeray mentions the Gin Twist in his 1869 Miscellanies: The Book of Snobs. Sketches and Travels in London. "About eleven men in white neckcloths drop in from dinner-parties, and show their lacquered boots and shirt-studs with a little complacency - and at midnight, after the theatres, the young rakes and viveurs come swaggering in, and call loudly for Gin-Twist."