South Side Cocktail
The Juice of 1/2 Lemon. (Juice 1/2 Lemon)
1/2 Tablespoonful of Powdered Sugar. (Heaping teaspoon Caster Sugar)
2 Sprigs Fresh Mint.
1 Glass Dry Gin. (2 oz Tanqueray Gin)
Shake well and strain into medium size glass. Add dash of siphon soda water.

These days, the South Side is almost always made as an up cocktail, with no soda. A mint Gimlet.

However, the Savoy version of the drink includes, “a dash of siphon soda water,” which is more or less how I made it.

Looking at Harry McElhone’s recipe for the South Side makes the drink’s origins as a minty Fizz even clearer:

“Juice of 1 Lemon, 1 teaspoon of Sugar, 2 or 3 sprigs of Fresh Mint, 1 glass of Gin (Gordon). Shake well and strain into a medium-size tumbler, and add Syphon.”

Double the lemon, decrease the sugar, and serve it in a “medium-size” tumbler. Basically a fizzy, ginny, minty, lemonade.

Depending on the weather, I can see the merits of either version. A hot day, you’re sitting on the porch in the country. Sipping the long version sounds awfully appealing. Dark day in a metropolitan city, sitting at the bar, who has time for that sort of thing? All we need is the flavored booze, thank you very much, and we will be on our way to our next engagement.

Guess it depends on your mood.

Are you just passing through or here to stay?

This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.