The Pegu Club

Half gimlet, half margarita, all delicious!

The Pegu Club is a drink with a clear discernible past from the British colonialist 1920s in what was then Burma. It was created at (and named after) the Pegu Club, which was a famous "genteman's club" near Rangoon that catered to British government officials and other rich white guys. Rudyard Kipling spent a brief moment dining there there back in 1889 when the club was in its heyday. Despite the all-white racist exclusivity of the club, there was a growing fascination with "the other", as is common in colonial histories the world over. This exoticism, clearly an extension of patriarchal attitudes towards women as vessels for male pleasure, led to the creation of many forms of cultural and and artistic output in the Victorian era too numerous to list.

An interesting tangent to this theme of romantic relationships is that Kipling's poem "Mandalay" was reportedly (and disputably) inspired by stories he heard from the British soldiers while dining at the Pegu Club which was later turned into a popular and influential song of the era titled "On the Road to Mandalay". I know these types of art/music/writing are problematic on many levels, but I feel like with an appropriate understanding of all the implications and history it's still possible to appreciate them. A song like this evokes a nostalgic romantic fantasy infused with melancholy and longing for a time that never truly existed. It's very similar to the exoticism of the Pacific Islands as evident in Tiki culture which I have touched upon in previous posts but will dive into more in the future.

Setting aside all of the racist history of colonialism in the Far East, let's just allow ourselves the guilty pleasure of enjoying a cocktail that evokes an unbearably hot summer night on the balcony of the original Pegu club listening to the sounds of the jungle and wiping away the sweat while knocking back several of their incredibly refreshing house cocktails.

Despite the simplicity of the ingredients, like many great classics the balance and contrast creates a complex interaction between flavors. The drink is essentially a blend between a gimlet (gin, lime, sugar) and a margarita (tequila, lime, orange liqueur) with a flourish of bitters and lime oil. Like so many old obscure classics, it was mostly ignored and forgotten until the cocktail renaissance of the early 2000s. I've already babbled on too long about history, but the short version is that it was revived by a New York City cocktail bar that named itself "The Pegu Club" as well.

Anyway, after way too much research I have found many subtle variations and alterations to the recipe so it's worth discussing further. The definitive source for the recipe comes from the famous 1930 "Savoy Cocktail Book" by Harry Craddock which I'm too lazy to read but probably should. Or, I could just do what everyone else does and find a website where I can look shit up as I want. Despite Savoy being the compendium of so many classics, the first written recipe was in 1923 in the book ABC of Mixing Cocktails which notably uses Rose's lime juice instead of fresh lime. Rose's is a disgusting product in its modern form because it's mostly lime flavoring with high fructose corn syrup, but I'm sure it was much better back then. In any case, it's a product similar to an oleo saccharum which is a citrus oil syrup/cordial that uses sugar as a preservative. What that means to me is that originally the drink had sugar and lime oils in it, which means Craddock has it wrong and so does everyone else that uses his recipe.

But why be a stickler for the original? Tastes have changed, and today's cocktails tend to be less sweet, so the later version is much more tart and refreshing than I would expect it to be with Rose's, although no one can ever truly know since that version of Rose's no longer exists. The version I made and recorded here is also less sweet and relies on one of the more popular variations that uses a full 2 oz. of gin and has the lime at 1/2 ounce instead of the higher 1:1 ratio found in some recipes or the original teaspoon which is a barely more than 1/4 oz. This keeps it tart but not sour and allows the botanicals of the gin to shine through which is obviously best with a more botanical gin rather than the typical London dry. You can also add more orange bitters or a bit of ice, like my Florida goth girl, because she says it burns the back of her throat, but in a good way. She says it has a pow! zing! to it. Worth it!. I generally think ice is a no-no and prefer a chilled glass, but I'm not opposed to it.

So try the version below and tweak as you see fit. You can also start with 1 1/2 gin and 1/4 lime to see how you like it and up the lime and/or gin to suit your taste. I'm gonna keep in mind that if you add more, you should re-shake it to properly emulsify the ingredients. Meanwhile, I'm gonna make a saccharum and see how that works - I'll update this post with the results later.

*Update - the saccharum is great but it makes the drink too sweet. I made it into a cordial (1:1 saccharum to lime juice and you can add 1/2 of it to the the drink if it's too tart for you. More on how to make one of those at a later date when I do the Paloma (Fully Loaded) which is a knockout!

Cheers!

The Pegu Club

2 oz gin of choice
3/4 oz orange curaçao or triple sec (I used Cointreau)
1/2 oz fresh lime juice
1 dash Angostura bitters
1 dash orange bitters
lime peel twist

Shake, strain into chilled coupe or whatever and garnish with a peel of lime. It's really important to twist the lime over the drink to get those essential oils that you would find in an oleo saccarum or Rose's lime.