The crowning achievement, in gin terms, of early gin advocate Audrey Saunders. This is essentially a Mojito (a rum drink) crossed with a Moscow Mule (a vodka drink), but made with gin. It also illustrates the wide influence the omnipresent Mojito had on bartenders at the turn of the twentieth century. “Dale [DeGroff] showed me his recipe for a classic Mojito with a dash or two of Angostura. Having a cocktail that had a fresh herb in it—who knew? Wow, that’s amazing. For me, the Mojito base, mint and lime, was really, really enjoyable. At that point, I dove head first into gin. So sub out the rum and try the gin and see how that tastes.” Saunders found a recipe for homemade ginger beer from a Beacon kitchen staffer. “It had a lot more sugar in it, so I tightened it up,” said Saunders. “I’m adding simple syrup in cocktails anyway, so let’s make it drier. Then I can control how much sugar I can put in it. So that was it: Gin Mojito. My quest was helping people get over their phobia about gin. And I thought, Wow, this drink is really good and accomplishes just that.” She used Bombay gin at the beginning, but finally settled on Tanqueray, which had the heft she wanted.
Reprinted with permission from A Proper Drink by Robert Simonson, copyright © 2016. Published by Ten Speed Press, a division of Penguin Random House.