DrAT! – Drink Away Time

The Gordon’s Breakfast is a cocktail that has been making the rounds among the usual suspects this past year, but has gotten surprisingly little coverage. It’s a spicy/savory take on the Gordon’s Cup, a summer favorite with gin, lime, cucumber and simple syrup. A pleasant enough drink on its own, but it tends to feel like a salad in the winter and a wannabe Pimm’s during the summer.

The addition of tabasco, worcestershire, salt and pepper to this drink makes it a competitor to the Bloody Mary for your brunch time affections, and if you’re like me, a go to for that first sip to wash away the day.

Gordon’s Breakfast

• 2oz gin
• 3/4oz simple syrup
• half lime, cut into 6ths
• 2 slices cucumber, peeled
• dash tabasco
• dash worcestershire
• sprinkle salt and pepper

First, drop the two slices of cucumber into a shaker and muddle them. There’s no need to do a ‘Bacardi Guy’, just breaking them up a bit is fine.

Separately, put the lime slices into the bottom of a Tom Collins glass and muddle them thoroughly. You want to get all the juice out from limes and have it spread around the inside of the glass so that you get a really strong lime fragrance when you first sip the drink.

Lime goes in ...

juice comes out.

Back in the shaker, add the gin, simple syrup, tabasco and worcestershire. A little tabasco goes a long way, so try out a few drops of each first to see how spicy and vinegary you like it. There’s no shame in adding more later; it’s certainly better than looking like a wimp when you complain your drink ‘tastes like burning’.

Add ice to the shaker and give it a few good back and forths, then put some cracked ice into your glass and strain the shaker into it. Stir it up a bit to combine the lime juice at the bottom with the rest of the drink and finish it by sprinkling salt and pepper on top.

And there you have a Gordon’s Breakfast. For the variant called the Custer, core the other half of your lime and drop in an egg yolk with tabasco and worcestershire, then rest it on top of the glass. You might remember the egg yolk shot (called a Prairie Oyster) from the Electric Current Fizz recipe.