Built like a Martini with Yellow Chartreuse where the vermouth would be, the Alaska wraps bracing gin in honeyed, herbal-spiced depth and arrives ice-cold in a coupe, deceptively simple to look at. A dash of orange bitters and an expressed lemon twist sharpen its quietly complex, almost monastic profile, keeping the sweetness of the liqueur lean and bright.
Garnish: Lemon Peel
Stirred · Coupe · Up
add
Add the gin, Yellow Chartreuse, and orange bitters (if using) to a shaker.
shake
Fill with ice and shake well until chilled (the Savoy method; stir as a spirit-forward alternative).
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe or cocktail glass, served up.
express
Express a lemon twist over the surface.
garnish
Drop the lemon twist in or perch it on the rim.
No one is recorded as the Alaska's inventor; it surfaces in print in Hugo Ensslin's 1916 manual, Recipes for Mixed Drinks, made with Old Tom gin, Yellow Chartreuse and a dash of orange bitters. Harry Craddock's The Savoy Cocktail Book of 1930 fixed the version most bartenders know, calling for dry gin at three parts to one of Chartreuse and leaving out the bitters. Even the Savoy shrugged at its beginnings, offering only that it was "probably first thought of in South Carolina, hence its name." Craddock told drinkers to shake it, though plenty of bartenders today stir it instead.