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Gin, built

Gin Rickey

Barline 2,h,t,HL

The code is the shorthand off my printed menu; the Key tab decodes every letter.

Build in the glass over ice, then lift once with a barspoon.

Highball, iced, lime twist.

Open in the menu

Taste

Two ounces of gin, half an ounce of lime, and soda over ice. Lime and bubbles are the only things standing next to the gin, so it lands sharp and the juniper is bare. Long and dry, lime twist on top.

History

The Rickey is a Washington drink. Joseph Kyle Rickey, a Missouri lobbyist, was drinking whiskey with carbonated water at Shoomaker's bar in the late 1880s, and the bartender George Williamson is credited by some with adding the squeezed half lime. Rickey said he introduced the drink rather than invented it, and put the idea down to Enno Sander, a Prussian physician who argued carbonated water made the more refreshing mixer. The name was circulating by 1889, and by the mid-1890s gin had displaced the bourbon. The city council made it the official cocktail of the District of Columbia in 2011. This menu pours two ounces of gin, half an ounce of lime, and soda over ice, with a lime twist.

Same shape, other bottles

The Highball family, with the bottle that changed.

This is one drink on my home bar's menu. Tick the bottles you own and the menu lists which of all 185 drinks they pour.