Shanghai Gin
A sour and herbal cocktail ∙ Shake ∙ 3 min ∙ 22.6% ABV ∙
The Shanghai Gin is an equal-parts shaken sour of gin, Yellow Chartreuse, Bénédictine and fresh lemon juice, served up in a coupe.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake all ingredients with ice: London dry gin 20 mlHerbal liqueur (e.g., Yellow Chartreuse) 20 mlBénédictine D.O.M. liqueur 20 mlLemon juice 20 ml
- Fine strain into the chilled glass
- Express a lemon twist over the cocktail and use as garnish
Tips
- Shake hard over plenty of ice. Two sweet liqueurs against only 20 ml of lemon can taste syrupy, and a good shake waters that down.
History
The Shanghai Gin's origin is not reliably documented. One widely repeated but uncorroborated account holds that an unnamed bartender at The Slanted Door, a Vietnamese restaurant in San Francisco, came across an old recipe for a drink called the Shanghai Gin Fizz in a forgotten bar manual. The bartender reportedly reworked it without the soda water into the modern shaken version.
Reference guides that catalog the drink describe it only as a cocktail that surfaced in the late 2010s of unknown origin. It is often noted as structurally similar to the Last Word, built from equal parts gin, green Chartreuse, maraschino, and lime juice.
