A bright, equal-parts gin sour, the Maiden's Prayer sets dry gin against a full matching measure of Cointreau, so juniper and sweet orange liqueur meet head-on and hold each other in check. Twin splashes of orange and lemon juice lift the whole, the citrus pulling double duty — one rounding out the orange, the other sharpening it — and it comes up cold in a coupe, pale and lively.
Shaken · Coupe · Up
add
Combine the gin, Cointreau, orange juice, and lemon juice in a shaker.
shake
Add ice and shake well until thoroughly chilled.
strain
Double-strain into a chilled coupe.
No bartender ever put a name to the Maiden's Prayer; it surfaces instead as a stock recipe in the cocktail books of London's hotel-bar years, among them the Buckstone Book of Cocktails, the 1931 guide 100 Cocktails and the Savoy Cocktail Book. Those period sources agree closely on its shape — matching measures of gin and Cointreau with a little orange and lemon, shaken and strained — and the Savoy and 100 Cocktails print identical three-three-one-one proportions. It belongs to the Prohibition-age clan of spirit, Cointreau and citrus drinks alongside the White Lady and Between the Sheets, as the member that trades rum and cognac for gin and adds orange juice to the lemon.