Welcome To Wonkette Happy Hour, With This Week's Cocktail, The Cucumber Gimlet!

And an impassioned aria for the creator of Hendrick's Gin.

It does in fact taste this good.

Greetings, Wonketeers! I’m Hooper, your bartender. A few weeks ago, I had a somewhat confused customer ask for reassurance about her drink. She wanted to make sure there was no cucumber in her pina colada. Rest assured, we do not put any cucumber in our pina coladas. There is no cucumber in our espresso martinis, either. And I will jump out of a window before I put cucumber in eggnog. However, we do put cucumber in a very nice gimlet, and this is the perfect weather for a cooling, refreshing drink. Let’s make a Cucumber Gimlet. Here’s the recipe:

Cucumber Gimlet

2 oz Hendrick’s Gin

1 oz St-Germain Liqueur

1 oz lime juice

Sprinkle of sea salt

2 slices English cucumber

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker. Gently muddle the cucumber slices. Shake and double-strain into a Nick and Nora glass. Garnish with a cucumber slice.

“Smell is important to me because it transports me back to a certain place or time. When I smell lavender, I always think of my nana. Smell triggers all sorts of memories and ideas.”

— Lesley Gracie

I have mentioned her in passing before, but I want to take a moment to genuflect at the feet of Ms. Lesley Gracie, the master distiller and driving force behind Hendrick’s Gin. A Yorkshire scientist who was tasked in the 1990s with creating a new gin for the distillery, Ms. Gracie reshaped gin as a category with Hendrick’s. She proved, definitively, that gin did not need to taste like floor cleaner. A whisper of juniper was all that was needed to provide a bright, clean palette for a masterpiece of flavor. The industry hasn’t looked back since.

Ms. Gracie hasn’t looked back either. Her Orbium gin, influenced by the herbal profile of absinthe, was another stunning entry into the gin category. Her Midsummer Solstice gin was created specifically for the brand ambassador’s wedding; she incorporated his fiancée’s favorite flowers into the recipe. While staying with a native tribe in Venezuela to learn about local botanicals, she set up a still to capture the taste of scorpion-tail plants. She continues to toil away at her greenhouses in a remote corner of Scotland, producing magical liquors like Another Hendrick’s, an astonishing orange blossom and cocoa nib creation. The people she works with are convinced she is a witch. They are correct. This woman’s alchemy is utter magic.

There is a special version of Hendrick’s, Sunspell, that is only available at duty-free stores. Ms. Gracie, much like Anthony Bourdain, believes that travel is necessary for becoming a well-rounded person. While I agree in principle, international travel and a life measured in tipped hourly wages don’t mix. If any of you discover this bottle, please contact me. I’d do a great deal to acquire a taste.

To summarize: Ms. Lesley Gracie — I’m a fan.

Adding cucumber to Hendrick’s is a complete no-brainer; reinforcing Ms. Gracie’s work makes sense. St-Germain’s pedigree is significantly less inspiring than Hendrick’s, but the “bartender’s ketchup” fits into this flavor profile beautifully. Cucumber, rose, and elderflower … it sounds like a poem. The lime juice provides the acid needed to balance the cocktail. This is, fundamentally, a daiquiri — one of the core recipes and an absolutely fundamental cocktail worth mastering. There’s no room to hide with a simple drink like this. Ms. Gracie’s masterpiece has all the room it needs to shine. Enjoy it.

Let’s talk ingredients:

Ingredient shot. There’s something magical about a lazy Wednesday afternoon at the bar.

Hendrick’s Gin: No, you may not use vodka here. I don’t care if gin made you sick in high school. If I haven’t managed to convince you that Hendrick’s is something special by now, skip this recipe and go get a White Claw.

St-Germain Liqueur: I don’t actually love this spirit, but it does pair up with Hendrick’s extremely well. I might be tempted to try using honey syrup (50/50 honey and water, heated until dissolved) as an alternative. Note that St-Germain and honey syrup are sweet, but less sweet than simple syrup. You’ll want to use more sugar and less acid than your ideal daiquiri.

Lime juice: If you dare use bottled juice in a cocktail this delicate, we will have words.

Cucumber: Use an English cucumber for this drink. Salad cucumbers have too many seeds, and their pulpy core makes for a lousy garnish. Use a light hand when muddling the cocktail. You aren’t making pulp. You only need to break up the slices a little.

Sea Salt: A little salinity to make the sweet less of a shout and more like a conversation in the glass.

My home bar is Hemingway’s Underground, the hottest cocktail bar in pretty little Medina, Ohio. I’m behind the stick Wednesday-Saturday, 4-10. Last call’s at midnight. Swing on by, and I’ll make a drink for you… or anything else from our little Happy Hour here at Wonkette. We’ll make it through this together.

OPEN THREAD!