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Simple and refreshing are the main adjectives to describe the Southside Cocktail recipe, entered in 2020 on the IBA list. It’s a gin-based cocktail, with a strong and persistent scent of mint and lemon. It’s a very fresh gin and mint cocktail.
The mint leaves give it freshness, the lemon instead a pleasantly acidic notes, which stimulate the palate and also the appetite, making it an excellent apéritif. On the finish comes the sweet note given by the sugar syrup that slightly softens the strong notes of London Dry Gin.
Southside Cocktail History
The Southside cocktail recipe, despite having entered the IBA cocktails only in 2020, is a cocktail with gin that dates back to the American Prohibition period (January 17, 1920 – December 5, 1933). If you don’t know, the Prohibition Age was a time when the consumption, sale, import, and production of alcohol was prohibited by law and very severely punished. This decision by the American government depended on various political and religious pressures to safeguard the health of the population, and also on more moralistic reasons.
Since alcohol could not be produced and consumed legally, the underworld of the time took advantage of this by creating a large and profitable traffic around the world of alcohol. The Southside cocktail sees its birth in the South Chicago area, where a rather edgy gin was smuggled and therefore the additions of lemon juice, mint, and sugar were required to create this gin-based cocktail.
Chicago in the 1920s was the reign of Al Capone, the most famous American gangster. It’s said that the Southside Cocktail was one of his favourites, so much that it was called the “Al Capone cocktail” or “Al Capone Drink”. Other rumours, however, give the paternity of this cocktail to the Southside Sportsman’s Club in Long Island and others at Club 21 in New York, but most consider it a Chicago cocktail.
There is also its predecessor and variant, the Southside Fizz, which also includes lime juice and sod water from the siphon, a fresh, and thirst-quenching long drink.
Southside Drink Preparation And Advice
The preparation of the Southside cocktail recipe involves the Shake and Strain technique: or rather double strain, that is shaken in the Boston and then filtered with a strainer and a fine mesh strainer to prevent pieces of ice and pieces of mint from falling into the cocktail. The decoration is a simple mint leaf or a small sprig. As already mentioned, it is a fresh drink that makes it pleasant at any time of day, very pleasant both as an apéritif cocktail or as an end of a meal.
Being a cocktail with fresh mint, the recipe includes mint leaves in the shaker. In some versions the leaves are crushed with lemon juice with a pestle in others simply shaken, as I did, the choice of one method or another will go to affect the intensity it will bring to the cocktail.
In the Southside cocktail recipe, there is an optional ingredient, egg white drops. It is an ingredient that is used to create a light foam making the cocktail more captivating but has no purpose for taste. Of course, if you make it for yourself, you will know whether you like egg white in your cocktail. But if you make it for others, always make sure to ask if they like this ingredient in their drink. It is important not only for reasons of personal taste, but also for allergic reasons, so be careful!
For cocktails that include this ingredient, however, prefer the use of pasteurized egg white, I had finished it and I used a little bit of freeze-dried egg white that I rehydrated with lemon juice, the result was not bad …!
Other Gin-based cocktails:
Southside Cocktail Recipe and Variation
Attrezzature
- Champagne Cup or cocktail glass, tumbler for the fizz version
- Boston Shaker
Ingredienti
- 60 ml London Dry Gin Tanqueray
- 30 ml Lemon Juice
- 15 ml Sugar Syrup
- a few drops Egg White pasteurized – optional
- 5 – 6 leaves Mint
- Ice
For Fizz Version
- 45 ml London Dry Gin
- 30 ml Lemon Juice
- 20 ml Sugar Syrup
- q.s. Soda Water
- 5 – 6 leaves Mint
- 1 sprig Mint for garnish
- Ice
Istruzioni
- Cool the cocktail glass with ice as well as the steel part of the shaker.
- In the other half of the boston, insert all the ingredients, filter any water formed in the boston, close and shake vigorously for 10 – 12 seconds.
- Throw the ice from the cup and filter with the strainer and a fine mesh strainer into the glass and decorate with a mint leaf.
For Fizz Version
- Chill a Boston half. Put all the ingredients except the soda in the other half. Filter any water and then shake vigorously.
- Strain the cocktail into an ice tumbler, top with soda and decorate with a sprig of mint.
Nutrizione
Le informazioni nutrizionali mostrate sono una stima fornita da un calcolatore nutrizionale online. Non deve essere considerato un sostituto del consiglio di un nutrizionista professionista.