Modern Classic Gin Drinks
Many famous cocktails have histories long forgotten. We don’t know why you can order a Martini from Moscow to Miami. But you can, and let’s take a moment to be thankful for that.
However, in this article, we’re going to look at four modern classic cocktails. The drinks that have travelled and landed in the common lexicon of bartenders in more recent, and indeed recorded times. It’s not hard to define what a modern classic is; we think a drink qualifies if you can walk into a quality cocktail bar in Barcelona or Brisbane, and order it without the bartender having to use Google. And we think it has to have been created in what we call the modern era of cocktails. This began in the 80s but took flight in the 90s and 00s. In this timeframe, bartenders were bringing back fresh juices instead of lurid cocktail mix, and dusting off old reference books from the original golden era of cocktails, the late 1800s/early 1900s. These old reference guides led to bartenders playing riffs on classics in a similar way to the way musicians innovate using old chords in new ways. Though we consider them modern classics, many of them predate the internet. These were mostly shared on the original social media, scrawled on the back of a napkin, and shared analogue, bartender to bartender. These drinks managed to cement themselves in the common catalogue of drinks before the era in which TikTok could teach the world the Sbagliato in 24 hours. Stunning.
We’ve selected four drinks that qualify for that criteria, and in all of them, gin is our hero.
Bramble, 1984
Created by Dick Bradsell in London in 1984, this is a fairly unassuming gin sour spiked with creme de mure. What is wholly remarkable about Bradsell is not just his enormous impact on the London cocktail scene as it emerged from its disco nap, but the fact that he left the world with several modern classic cocktails. Few bartenders leave the world with a drink; Bradsell created the Espresso Martini, The Treacle, and the Bramble (among others). So you may not have heard of him, but you’ve certainly had your Friday nights supersized by his creations.
The Bramble is served on crushed ice. Our favourite Archie Rose cocktail hack is to use the bag our bottles come in, fill it with ice and whack it with a rolling pin.
In a mixing tin, combine all ingredients except for the creme de mure. Add ice and shake hard.
Pack the crushed ice into a tumbler. Give it a few taps and cap it with some more ice. Fill with the shaken ingredients, and then drizzle the mure on top. You can garnish with some blackberries if you have them to hand, or a lemon wheel (or if you’re feeling fancy, both).
50ml Archie Rose Bone Dry gin
25ml lemon juice
10ml sugar syrup
10ml crème de mûre
1 blackberry, 1 lemon wheel to garnish
White Negroni, 2001
This drink was created by Wayne Collins to quench his thirst while on holiday in France. He substituted two-thirds of the omnipresent Italian aperitivo with ghostly French alternatives. The Campari became Suze, and the sweet vermouth became Lillet Blanc. It’s still bitter, but somehow, it feels like a French revolution in cocktails. Viva la France!
30ml Archie Rose Lemon Scented Gum
30ml Suze
30ml Lillet Blanc
Combine in a mixing glass and stir over ice. Strain onto a large ice cube and garnish with a grapefruit twist. Again, grapefruit oil is an overpowering beast, so use it with a delicate hand.
Why did this travel so well? Why, in less than 20 years (really in less than 10), did it become a modern classic? My guess would be bartenders love Negronis and love twists on Negronis; we love bittersweet drinks. Plus, it just sounds cool. But also because while it seems so simple and is impossible to forget, it actually has a distinct character of its own.
These days, maybe some drinks travel the world because of an influencer doing their thing, sometimes they travel because they make sense, and it seems as though they have always been there. But often, it’s because the bartender has travelled, pulled up a stool and asked another bartender if they know this drink they had this one time.
London Calling, 2002
Cocktail bar Milk and Honey was founded in New York City by the late Sasha Petraske in 1999, with another venue in London opening shortly after. Petraske, and Milk and Honey, had more impact on cocktail culture than arguably anyone else in the modern era. Their alumni can be found running venues around the world with a global impact that literally cannot be understated. Spreading their ethos of quality ingredients, pristine ice, and a curated back bar with hard-to-find obscure (but polished) bottles being poured into even more obscure, but rightly revived cocktails.
One such alum, Chris Jepson, created the London Calling in 2002. It became not only a Milk and Honey staple but also started appearing on menus internationally, pulled from the memories and notepads of the bartenders who left Milk and Honey. It fits the bill for a classic—its ingredients are relatively easy to obtain—and crucially, bartenders in good bars will know it. It has murky beginnings in unbalanced and forgotten prohibition-era drinks, but most importantly, it’s bloody delicious.
40 ml Archie Rose Signature Dry Gin
15 ml lemon juice
15 ml sugar syrup (1:1)
15 ml fino sherry
2 dashes orange bitters
Shake all ingredients with ice, and strain.
Garnish with grapefruit twist - grapefruit can be very drying on a drink, so less is more here. A little button or neat bend on the edge of the glass will be just the ticket.
Gin Basil Smash, 2008
Created in Hamburg in 2008 by Joerg Meyer, this modern take on a Smash is a surprisingly fragrant beast. A Smash is a cocktail shaken with mint traditionally. But you can swap out that mint for other more unusual herbs and give it a brash shake-up. It doesn’t seem to instinctively make sense - but we’re here to tell you to trust us. Gin is a spirit of character - and basil has that in abundance. Reach for a gin that has a herbaceous backbone, and you will be very pleasantly surprised. The lesson here is to try small variations on drinks you love. You might not create a new modern classic (if you think you have one, please write to us and tell us all about it), but you’ll definitely have fun along the way.
60ml Archie Rose Lemon Scented Gum
30ml lemon juice
20ml sugar syrup (1:1)
8 basil leaves
Take a nice, fresh, bushy stem of basil, and strip the leaves (but leave the nice spritely top sprig). Put the leaves in a shaker and add the liquid ingredients. Add ice. Shake really hard, but fast. Fine strain (use a fine strainer or tea strainer) over ice in a rocks glass. Add the basil sprig for garnish. Some recipes might call for muddling the basil, but we think 10 seconds in a shaker is going to give the leaves a pretty good muddling all on its own.