verdant lady

2 oz Gin (Bombay Dry)
1/2 oz Lime Juice
1/4 oz Green Chartreuse
1/4 oz Simple Syrup
4 leaf Mint

Shake with ice, strain into a cocktail coupe, and garnish with a mint sprig (mint leaf).At Drink, a guest asked me for a cocktail called the Verdant Lady, and I had to look it up to make it. My first idea that it was an egg white number in the White Lady family; however, it turned out to essentially be a Green Ghost crossed with a South Side. The history online is a bit nebulous as is a standardized recipe, but all directions pointed to a San Francisco genesis circa 2007 perhaps at Alembic. The Drink connection is that one of the opening bartenders in 2008 was Josey Packard who previously worked at Alembic, and it may have become part of the Drink regulars' lexicon that way. The above is my hybridized recipe, and once prepared, the Verdant Lady showed off her mint, herbal, and pine aroma. Next, the lime juice drove the sip that led into gin, mint, and Chartreuse's green herbal flavors on the swallow.