Lions Tail
Shake ∙ 3 min ∙ 25.1% ABV ∙
The Lion's Tail is a bourbon sour built with allspice dram, lime juice, sugar syrup, and a dash of Angostura bitters, shaken and served up. Cold and silky with a warming spiced undertone, the tart finish stays bright while a lime twist's oil lingers on the nose.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake all ingredients with ice: Bourbon 60 mlAllspice dram liqueur 10 mlLime juice 15 mlSugar syrup 5 mlAngostura aromatic bitters 1 dash
- Strain into the chilled glass
- Express a lime twist over the cocktail and use as garnish
Tips
- Measure the allspice dram carefully — it is intensely spiced and will overwhelm the bourbon if poured too heavy.
- Shake hard and briefly with plenty of ice to chill and aerate before straining, since there's no egg white to work here.
- Express the lime twist directly over the glass before dropping it in — the citrus oils lift the spice on the nose.
- Pre-chill the coupe so the drink doesn't lose its cold snap by the time it's strained and garnished.
History
The Lion's Tail first appeared in print in William James "Billy" Tarling's Café Royal Cocktail Book, published in London in 1937, where the recipe is credited to L. A. Clarke. Little else is known about Clarke, but the bourbon base and the name have led many drink historians to believe the creator was an American bartender who had decamped to London during Prohibition.
The name is widely tied to "twisting the lion's tail," an old American idiom for needling the British by invoking the lion on their royal coat of arms, a phrase that gained fresh currency amid the Anglophobia of the interwar years. Because the cocktail's American-style bourbon-and-bitters build stood out in a London bar book, this slang connection is offered as the likely explanation for the name, though no direct documentation confirms Clarke's identity or nationality.
After decades as a minor curiosity, the drink was revived by modern craft bartenders in the 2000s and 2010s, among them Jack McGarry of New York's The Dead Rabbit, who reworked it and inspired further riffs, helping return the once-obscure Prohibition-era recipe to wider circulation.
FAQ
What's in a Lion's Tail?
Bourbon, allspice dram liqueur, fresh lime juice, sugar syrup, and a dash of Angostura bitters, shaken with ice and strained up into a coupe with a lime twist.
How do you make a Lion's Tail?
Shake the bourbon, allspice dram, lime juice, sugar syrup, and a dash of Angostura bitters hard with ice, then strain into a pre-chilled coupe glass. Finish by expressing a lime twist over the drink and dropping it in as garnish.
