pegu club

2 oz gin
1 oz orange liqueur
1/2 oz lime juice
2 dashes Angostura

Shake with ice and strain into a cocktail glass.

Matt made me this as my first drink last night at No. 9 Park. He used Plymouth gin and Ben's housemade orange liqueur (80 oranges' peels mixed with grain neutral spirits). The fact that their orange liqueur was unsweetened (or not sweetened much) made this drink delightfully dry. Some versions of the drink use these proportions except use Cointreau or curacao which makes the drink taste wrong for me. Also, some recipes use orange bitters instead of or in addition to the Angostura; combined is fine but alone the orange bitters lack the strength to steer the drink the proper direction.

Yes, I am pretty particular about the Pegu since it was the first gin cocktail that won me over to the spirit. The ratio I use at home is 1 1/2 oz gin (often Bombay), 1/2 oz Cointreau, 1/2 oz lime juice, and a dash of Angostura; shake until painfully cold. With this ratio, the citrus and the bitters mix to make the cocktail taste like grapefruit juice.

The rich history of the drink I found when researching this drink back in 2006 was this one, and I just found a decent article in the Wall Street Journal on it (with yet a different recipe).