A herbal gin sour shaken hard with a fistful of muddled basil, it pours a vivid, faintly cloudy green and drinks bracingly fresh. Tart lemon and clean juniper ride a green, peppery wave of crushed basil, with just enough syrup to round off the edges.
Garnish: Basil Leaf
Shaken · Coupe · Up
muddle
Gently muddle the basil leaves in the shaker to release the aromatic oils without shredding them.
add
Add gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup to the shaker over ice.
shake
Shake vigorously to chill and to bruise the basil through the ice.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe to leave the basil fragments behind (or serve over ice in a rocks glass).
garnish
Garnish with a fresh basil sprig.
Jörg Meyer came up with the drink in the summer of 2008 behind the bar of Le Lion, his place in Hamburg, taking the Whiskey Smash as his starting point. He first sold it as "Gin Pesto" before settling on the name it carries now. It has since joined the IBA's official list under the "New Era" heading, making it one of the few drinks of this century to enter that canon.