A small heavy-based tumbler of faintly hazy pale greenish-yellow Gimlet beside a corked clear bottle of lime cordial and a glass stirring rod on worn pine against white plaster. — The 1923 Gimlet, gin and lime cordial in equal halves, stirred in a small tumbler beside a bottle of cordial.

The Gimlet as MacElhone Printed It (1923)

Name: Gimlet
Prep time: 5 min
Total time: 5 min
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 1 1/2 fl oz Plymouth gin; 1 1/2 fl oz lime juice cordial; ice cubes (optional)

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Plymouth gin and Rose’s lime juice cordial in equal halves, stirred and served in the same glass, iced only if you like: the Gimlet as Harry MacElhone printed it in London in 1923, with a note that it was popular in the Navy.

By Forgotten DrinkPublished October 21, 2026

Recipe makes: 1 drink, about 3 fl oz
Prep: 5 min
Total: 5 min

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The 1923 Gimlet, gin and lime cordial in equal halves, stirred in a small tumbler beside a bottle of cordial.

The story behind the recipe

“A very popular beverage in the Navy,” Harry MacElhone wrote under his Gimlet, and the recipe above that note is as plain as a cocktail gets: Coates’ Plymouth gin and Rose’s lime juice cordial in equal halves, stirred in the glass it is served in and iced only if the drinker wants it. MacElhone, the “Harry” of Ciro’s on its title page, printed it in his ABC of Mixing Cocktails in London in 1923. No older Gimlet recipe is known to us. The Oxford Companion to Spirits and Cocktails dates the same recipe to a 1922 edition of the book.

Lime juice for the fleet

Behind the drink stands a law. According to Paul Clarke in the Oxford Companion, the Merchant Shipping Act of 1867 required British merchant ships to carry lime juice against scurvy, and in the same year Lauchlan Rose of Edinburgh patented a way to keep lime juice without alcohol. Rose’s sold it sweetened, as a cordial, and by 1900, Clarke writes, gin was already its natural partner.

The name itself is unsettled. One story credits Surgeon Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Gimlette, who is said to have given his messmates gin with their lime as medicine; it first appears in a Royal Navy slang dictionary of 1955, and his obituaries say nothing of it. The other points to the gimlet, the small hand tool for boring holes. Neither is documented. The record does hold a cousin from 1917: Tom Bullock’s The Ideal Bartender, printed in St. Louis, has a Gillette Cocktail, made Chicago style, of Old Tom gin, fresh lime and bar sugar.

Half and half

Equal parts of gin and a sweetened cordial make a sweeter drink than the modern Gimlet, about 3 fl oz at roughly 20% ABV served as printed, with no ice. Chilling the gin and cordial beforehand is our choice. Harry Craddock printed the same half-and-half Gimlet in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930. Most bars now shake gin with fresh lime juice and sugar syrup instead, where the 1923 recipe stirs gin and cordial in the glass.

The same book prints MacElhone’s own Monkey Gland, and TuneMyRecipe’s 1900 Gin Rickey (opens in a new tab) is the tall, fresh-lime cousin, made with soda. The other drinks of MacElhone’s London and Paris bars are in Cocktails in 1920s London and Paris.

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Ingredients

For 1 drink, about 3 fl oz. Quantities are shown as written.

Quantities as written here, for 1 drink, about 3 fl oz.

Plymouth gin1 1/2 fl oz
Lime juice cordial1 1/2 fl oz
Ice cubes (optional)

Ingredients as written here

1 1/2 fl oz Plymouth gin
1 1/2 fl oz lime juice cordial
ice cubes (optional)

Equipment

Tumbler
Bar spoon

Instructions

Chill the Plymouth gin and the lime juice cordial in the fridge first, if you like the drink cold without ice.
Pour the gin and the cordial into a small tumbler and stir with a bar spoon for a few seconds to mix.
Add a few ice cubes if you want it colder, and serve without garnish.

Nutrition

180calories per serving

Recipe makes: 1 drink, about 3 fl oz

Estimated from USDA FoodData Central values for 80-proof gin (64 calories per fl oz), plus a sweetened lime juice cordial taken as about 40% sugar; cordial labels vary.

Recipe notes

When adjusting quantities

Keep the gin and lime cordial in equal parts; mix each drink in its own glass.

Notes

Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.

MacElhone gives the halves without a total; 1 1/2 fl oz (about 45 ml) each makes a 3 fl oz drink, the same size as his Monkey Gland. Any lime juice cordial will do, and London dry gin works in place of Plymouth.

The modern serve: shake 2 fl oz gin, 3/4 fl oz fresh lime juice and 3/4 fl oz simple syrup hard with ice and strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

For an alcohol-free glass, our suggestion: pour 1 1/2 fl oz lime juice cordial over ice in a tall glass and fill up with about 1/2 cup cold soda water.

Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment.