29 Jun Gin Sling Cocktail Recipe

Posted at 07:00h in Blog, Cocktail Recipes, Cocktail Recipes: Classic by Roberts & June

Gin Sling Cocktail Recipe

This week, we’re drinking our way along the evolution of the cocktail, from those old fashioned mixtures of a spirit, sugar, and something else, to bubbly highballs, and eventually to the fancy, straight up drinks we now think of as ‘cocktails.’ And we’re doing it all with Wigle Whiskey.

On today’s stop at the highball, we’re featuring a drink that’s quickly becoming a summer favorite of ours, the Gin Sling. It’s simple and refreshing. It’s hard to get wrong. It’s flexible, working around what you have in your bar. And it’s easy to dress up or dress down.

At its most standard, the Gin Sling involves a base of gin, with some orange liqueur and lemon juice, topped with a generous amount of soda water. As is, it’s a pleasant, easy-drinking cocktail, especially suited for long sips on a hot day. It’s also an extremely hardy drink, handling tweaking well. If you don’t have or don’t like orange liqueur, feel free to try a different liqueur; as long as you have some juice around that pairs well with the liqueur and maybe adds a touch of sweetness, you’re probably going to like it.

We also enjoyed experimenting a little with the base. The Gin Sling works perfectly adequately with a decent mixing gin; there’s enough liqueur and water to smooth out a mixing gin’s sometimes harsh edges. On the other hand, the flavors of the Gin Sling are simple enough that if you use a good, craft gin instead, the gin really stands out; the pleasant sipper all of a sudden becomes something you want to savor. Our favorite experiment, though, was using genever–gin’s older, malty, more herbal Dutch brother–instead of gin. Genevers aren’t easy to find, but our friends at Wigle make one, which they call ‘Ginever‘–I think because genever technically has to come from Holland. The genever version of the Sling is intensely flavorful without losing its essentially easygoing nature.