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I met a friend for happy hour at a venerable Portland saloon last night. The goal was burgers, as I'd just finished reading Wharfinger's The Courier's Tragedy.
Anyway, at said venerable Portland establishment, we witness an interesting straining technique and a recipe variation new to me.
a straining technique
The bartender poured the components into a mixing glass over ice (disk ice), topped it with the boston shaker, shook (maybe not quite enough), then took the apparatus apart,liquid in the boston shaker, poured dregs from the mixing glass into the boston shaker, then put the mixing glass into the boston shaker, and using this cone-in-cone as a strainer, poured the drink into the cocktail glass (a rather smart stemless number with a nice heavy base).
a gimlet recipe
- lemon-lime soda (off the gun)
- five lime wedges squeezed
- shot of gin
Tasty, but not according to Hoyle.
Straining- anyone here do this? seen this? opinions?
That "Gimlet"- is this recommended by anyone? experienced by anyone?
Regarding the straining, one of the first things I learned to do with a Boston is crack it open just enough for the liquid to pour out around the ice. I still do this every once in awhile, when my strainer is a bit out of reach, but haven't gotten great results as far as ease of flow or getting ice chips floating on the surface of the drink.
I thought that the 'cone in cone' straining method looked pretty clever, but I soon realized that it's not practical for me. It gets so busy at my joint that I have to make more than one cosmo at once. I know some of you might be cringing, but on a good night I get tickets printing up by the arm length. When in Rome...
A few years ago I cracked the glasses, but I get mad when a ice cube sneaks by. I don't like being slowed down. Steady wins the race.
I'm back with the good ole' hawthorne strainer. Just for consistency.
As far as Gimlets go...I'm never opposed to re-interpretation, but....the 'L' button on my gun goes into shirley temples.
That technique is lazy and dirty.
It goes right along the line of using your hand to scoop ice. I could however demonstrate a double over capture with a cheater tin into a pour. I love Tom Cruise.
A great Gimlet is a beautiful thing I'd love to make you one.
As for that recipe being in Gimlet territory, I'm sorry to say that there is no carbonation in a gimlet. Nor any of the other ingredients found in Sierra Mist.
I saw someone do that a bar in Bend. I forget the name of the pub, but it's a sports-bar type place around the corner from the movie theater. It's the only time I had ever seen that technique used and asked the bartender about it. She said it was how she was taught. She was very good otherwise though. Fast and efficient, and the simple cocktails that we got were good.
I've had to try to un-train so many bartenders in my career, and it's not really a ton of fun. The truth of the matter is that the crack-and-strain move is lazy, it's sloppy, and it's all for show. It takes both hands to do it, and that precludes fine-straining with a tea strainer between the shaker and the drink.
And if you want a basic gimlet recipe, try 2 ounces of spirit, 1 ounce of fresh lime juice, and 1 ounce of simple syrup, and adjust the proportions to your taste preferences. Personally I take mine with ¾ ounce lime and ½ ounce simple syrup. But it also depends on the spirit.
I don't have the hands for to properly single-hand crack the boston/glass, but I have used that technique before with both hands. Even if I have all the time in the world I feel like it doesn't get all the liquid out of the strainer. But, hey, that's a complaint that belies my situation, an at-home 'pprentice bartender mixing my own drink before I start thinking about making dinner.
My thoughts on the glass-in-mixer straining was that there is a cleverness or elegance of tool use. But I felt squimish watching it in action; Shenaut calls it as it is, "dirty".
We recognize in Mr.Morganthaler's basic gimlet suggestion that Primal Formula given at the February OBG Event: 2 strong to 1 sweet to 1 acid. Myself, having always made a gimlet with Rose's Sweetened-and-Shelf-Stabilized Lime Cordial, I've not carefully considered the proportions, or that the Gimlet is in the Sidecar lineage. In truth I long thought it a British Navy drink, and pre-dating the Sidecar, but quick research suggests that Surgeon Rear-Admiral Gimelette served until 1917. That's more contemporaneous to the Sidecar.
What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose's Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.one Terry Lennox to gumshoe Philip Marlowe, in Raymond Chandler's The Long Goodbye
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