The History of the Gimlet

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The classic Gimlet cocktail is a three-ingredient masterclass in simplicity and balance. Composed only of gin, lime juice, and sugar, it helped pave the way for countless cocktails to follow, from the Margarita to the Daiquiri and the Sidecar.

The History of the Gimlet

The Gimlet dates to the 19th century. At the time, British sailors had come to be provided lime rations in an effort to combat scurvy. The juice was often mixed with smaller quantities of neutral spirits to preserve it for long voyages, until a a ship provisioner named Lachlan Rose created a technique to fortify the juice with sugar rather than alcohol. Rose's creation allowed for a shelf stable product which he believed would also open an additional market for those seeking preserved lime juice without alcohol included. He would eventually brand his product Rose's Lime Juice Cordial.

As for who first combined Rose's cordial with navy rations of gin, the story gets murkier. Many like to credit Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Desmond Gimlette, a British naval doctor, for popularizing the cocktail. Others say it was named after a tool used to bore holes on ships. Like most pre-20th-century cocktails, particularly one that come from such a simple a template—spirit, sugar, and citrus—it's hard to pin down a single point of origin.

What we do know is that by the 1940–50s, the classic Gimlet was codified in both popular culture and many cocktail books as a simple 50/50 mix of Rose's Lime Juice Cordial and gin. However, much as the Whiskey Sour rebounded from the "sour mix era" to once again use fresh ingredients, the Gimlet also began to revert back to what the Rose's version only tried to approximate: a combination of gin, fresh lime juice, and sugar.

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