Pegu Club
Gin, orange curaçao, lime and two bitters. The house cocktail of a British officers' club in colonial Rangoon, and the drink Audrey Saunders named her bar for.
Built to the standard modern spec; not yet tested in our kitchen. How we test.
The recipe.
Scaling adjusts quantities only. Prepare shaken drinks in individual portions.
Let’s make a good drink.
Chill a coupe.
Add the gin, orange curaçao, lime juice and both bitters to a shaker.
Fill with ice and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into the chilled coupe and garnish with a lime wheel.
A thoughtful finish
- A dry curaçao at 40% makes the drink the Savoy intended; a sweet triple sec makes it a lime Margarita with gin. Pierre Ferrand's dry curaçao is the modern standard.
- The 1930 recipe is two parts gin to one of curaçao and one of lime; modern bars tighten it to the proportions here for a drier drink.
- Both bitters. The Angostura gives spice, the orange bitters lift the curaçao; the drink is thin without them.
Common mistakes
- Blue curaçao. It is the same liqueur with dye, but the colour is wrong and the cheap ones are sugary.
- Lemon instead of lime. The drink is a lime drink.
- Skipping the bitters, which is like skipping the salt.
A few good questions.
What does a Pegu Club taste like?
A dry, sharp gin and lime sour with bitter orange — like a Gimlet that has been to the tropics. It is one of the great gin sours.
What was the Pegu Club?
A British colonial gentlemen's club in Rangoon, now Yangon, founded in the 1880s. The building still stands.
What curaçao?
A dry orange curaçao — a 40% orange liqueur on a brandy base. A good triple sec works; a sweet one does not.
Why is a New York bar named for it?
Audrey Saunders opened Pegu Club in SoHo in 2005 and named it for the drink, which she had revived at Bemelmans. The bar closed in 2020.
Variations
- Gimlet — Gin, lime and sugar.
- White Lady — Gin, orange liqueur and lemon.
- Corpse Reviver No. 2 — Gin, Lillet, orange liqueur, lemon and absinthe.
- Margarita — Tequila, orange liqueur and lime — the same template.
Where it comes from
c. 1920s · Rangoon, Burma · Pegu Club
The Pegu Club was a gentlemen’s club in Rangoon, built in the 1880s for British officers and officials, and its house cocktail — gin, orange curaçao, lime, Angostura and orange bitters — was famous enough by the 1920s that Harry MacElhone printed it in Barflies and Cocktails in 1927 and Harry Craddock in the Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, with the note that it had ‘travelled, and is asked for, round the world.’ It was then forgotten for seventy years. Audrey Saunders revived it, named her 2005 New York bar after it, and the drink is now a standard again. The club building survives in Yangon and has been restored.
Sources
- Harry MacElhone, Barflies and Cocktails, 1927 (book)
- Harry Craddock, The Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930 (book)
- Robert Simonson, A Proper Drink, 2016 (book)
Strength. About 2.01 US standard drinks at an estimated 27.1% ABV, estimated from the ingredients and technique, not measured. What that means.
A little character in every sip.
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