The Pimm's Cup pours the gin-based, fruit-and-spice cup liqueur over ice and stretches it with about three parts clear, sparkling lemonade, a long, lightly spiced highball that drinks like a softer, fruitier Gin & Tonic. Cucumber and mint bring a cool green snap to the nose while orange and strawberry crowd the glass — gentle, fruity, and built for a long afternoon.
Garnish: Cucumber Slice, Mint Sprig, Orange Wheel, Strawberry
Built · Highball · On the Rocks
build
Fill a highball glass with cubed ice and add the Pimm's No. 1 (cup liqueur).
top
Top with chilled clear, carbonated English-style lemonade (lemon-lime soda), roughly three parts soda to one part Pimm's, and stir gently.
garnish
Garnish with a cucumber slice and a mint sprig; add orange and strawberry slices to taste.
The liqueur at its heart goes back to 1823, when James Pimm began producing his No. 1 cup as a digestif, serving it in tankards to diners at the oyster bar he kept close to the Bank of England. Who first turned it into a mixed serve is less settled — the credit is debated between Pimm and his successor Samuel Morley, and no one is named as the author of the modern lemonade-and-fruit build. In time it became the unofficial pour of the English summer season at the Chelsea Flower Show, Henley and Wimbledon, and by the late 1940s it had crossed the Atlantic, turning up in New England and New Orleans.