How To Make a Pink Grapefruit Gimlet In a Few Simple Steps

Let’s put a twist on a classic drink. Try this recipe for a Pink Grapefruit Gimlet.

Add a twist to your regular gin drink with this Pink Grapefruit Gimlet. The recipe is simple, I just replaced some of the lime that goes into the regular Gimlet with some pink grapefruit. You’ll get a great cocktail with some sweetness and fruit from the grapefruit juice.

But before we start drinking let’s check out what the regular Gimlet is.

The Gimlet Cocktail

The Gimlet cocktail is a that dates back to the late 19th century when it allegedly was served to sailors at the Royal Navy. The reason for this was to prevent scurvy which was a common disease that derived from a lack of vitamin C.

The classic drink is made out of gin and Rose’s lime cordial or gin and lime juice. The idea to add the lime to the gin came from General Sir Thomas Gimelette who the drink is named after.

Gimlet Varieties

The Gimlet is a drink that is easy to turn into something else. Replace the gin with vodka and you’ve got yourself a vodka gimlet. Replace it with rum and you’re not far off from a daquiri.

In the Raymond Chandler novel The Long Goodbye a Gimlet was said to be made out of half gin and half Rose’s lime juice. Nowadays Rose’s lime have fallen out of fashion and if you go to a decent bar today you are likely to get one with fresh lime juice.

Pink Grapefruit Gimlet

I prefer to write drink recipes in parts, that way you can make as much or as little as possible and it’s easy to multiply the recipe. Transfer each part to 1 cl / 0.33 oz if you want to.

6 parts gin
4 parts fresh pink grapefruit juice
2 parts fresh lime juice
1 part simple syrup (1 part sugar + 1 part water)

1 piece of grapefruit skin
1 slice of lime

Tools
ice
shaker
sieve

Combine gin, grapefruit and lime juice and simple syrup into a shaker, add a handful of ice. Shake the drink and strain it into a martini or coupe glass. Squeeze a rind of grapefruit skin and add, add a slice of lime and serve.

About the Shaker and Sieve

It’s fun to have some bar tools at home but if you’re used to cooking you already have most of the stuff you need. For this drink I used a mason jar with a screw top lid as a shaker. The sieve is normally used to make tea. So check what you have before you start to invest in lots of bar tools.

Drink Recipes at Ateriet

Making drinks is fun and I highly recommend trying some of my recipes out. Use them as a starting point to create new and fun stuff. Some of my drinks are classics with a twist, some a real classics and some are inventions of my own. You’ll find them all here.