Alaska Cocktail

Name: Alaska Cocktail
Yield: 1 drink
Ingredients: 2 1/4 ounces Old Tom gin, preferably Hayman’s; 3/4 ounce yellow Chartreuse; 1 dash orange bitters; Lemon twist, for garnish

Recipe from Jim Kearns

Adapted by Robert Simonson

Rating: 4(194)
Comments: Read comments

The big question when preparing an Alaska cocktail is the choice of gin. Though most bars make it with London Dry gin, the earliest known recipe for the drink calls for Old Tom gin, a sweeter form of the spirit that was common in the 19th and early 20th centuries. This is the recipe found in “Drinks,” a 1913 book by the bartender Jacques Straub, and favored by Jim Kearns, an owner of Slowly Shirley, a cocktail bar in Greenwich Village. "The orange bitters adds a nice, dry, citric note to the end, keeping the cocktail from becoming too sweet,” Mr. Kearns said. While Straub’s instructions do not call for a lemon twist, Mr. Kearns added it anyway, because it “complements the orange bitters so nicely. —Robert Simonson

Featured in: A Cousin of the Martini, the Alaska, Strikes Gold

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Ingredients

Yield:1 drink

2¼ounces Old Tom gin, preferably Hayman’s
¾ounce yellow Chartreuse
1dash orange bitters
Lemon twist, for garnish

Ingredient Substitution Guide

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Preparation

Step 1
In a mixing glass filled with ice, combine the gin, Chartreuse and bitters, and stir until chilled, about 30 seconds. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Squeeze the lemon twist over the drink’s surface and drop it into the glass.