Turf Club (1900 recipe)
A herbal and balanced cocktail ∙ Stir ∙ 3 min ∙ 24.4% ABV ∙
The Turf Club is a stirred cocktail of equal parts London dry gin and dry vermouth with maraschino, orange bitters and a dash of absinthe, served up.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Stir all ingredients with ice: London dry gin 45 mlDry vermouth 45 mlMaraschino liqueur 10 mlOrange bitters 1 dashAbsinthe 1 dash
- Fine strain into the chilled glass
- Express a lemon twist over the cocktail and discard
- Garnish with a maraschino cherry
Tips
- Keep the absinthe to a true dash; any more and the anise turns bitter and drowns the gin and vermouth.
History
The Turf Club (1900 recipe) follows Harry Johnson, who added the drink in 1900 as the final entry in the revised "New and Improved" edition of his bartenders' manual, after omitting it from his 1882 and 1888 editions. Johnson called for Plymouth gin and French vermouth in equal measure with dashes of orange bitters, maraschino, and absinthe. This version of the Turf Club uses London dry gin in place of Plymouth and a larger measure of maraschino, 10 ml.
The Turf Club itself is an older drink, first printed in 1884 in George Winter's guide to mixing drinks as a simple combination of Old Tom gin, sweet vermouth, and bitters. It is one of the earliest known pairings of gin and vermouth and a forerunner of the Martini and the Martinez. Johnson kept that base but added maraschino and absinthe for an anise-and-cherry accent, while George J. Kappeler's Turf Club (1895 recipe) went the other way and dropped the vermouth.
