Kicking Off Your Summer with a Royale Crown Jewel
If words like “gin” and “strawberries” make up your dream summer, we definitely have the drink for you!
We originally taught this cocktail recipe for our take on the gin gimlet, a “Gin X”, at our Launch to Summer Cocktail class a couple weeks ago. We had 43 guests who learned five simple cocktail recipes perfect for summer parties, barbecues, or just a night on the patio. The Gin X cocktail is one of the crown jewels of our current menu, so even if you don’t mix one up yourself, you can always come enjoy one with us!
We take pride in our mixology, as well as our diverse array of ingredients, garnishments, and spirits. But most people don’t have access to a full bar of ingredients at home. We created a menu for our cocktail class that pulled from drinks filled with ingredients that most people already had at home. Simple, accessible, and quality ingredients are all you really need to make your refreshing summer cocktail.
That’s where the Gin X comes in: a simple and delicious cocktail that tastes a lot more complicated than it is!
The trickiest part of mixing up the Gin X is the muddling: You’ll want to make sure to double-strain your cocktail out of the tin so that you don’t sacrifice the drink’s consistency with chunks of produce. It’s helpful to have a Hawthorne strainer, muddler, shaker tin, and a jigger on hand, too.
Full recipe for the Gin X is below (and be sure to keep an eye out for our next cocktail class, so you can get even more tips from the mixologist pros!)
Gin X Cocktail
Ingredients:
1.5 oz London dry gin
0.75 oz Fresh lime juice
1.0 oz Simple Syrup
4-5 Basil Leaves and ½ Ripe Strawberry
Directions:
Separate your tin.
Muddle your strawberry into the smaller side of the tin. Take your basil leaves (set aside or leave for garnish) and smack them in the palm of your hands to extract the oils of the basil, then drop into tin with strawberry.
In large side of tin, add in fresh lime juice, simple syrup, and gin.
Fill large side of tin halfway full with ice.
Seal tins and shake vigorously, until tin is nice and chilled and the ice has broken down well.
Double strain into ice-filled glass.
Smack one more large basil leaf and place in glass as garnish.
Enjoy!