Lemons
Juice & mixers · usually a modifier · in 16 cocktails here
What it is
Squeeze them fresh. Bottled lemon juice is cooked, and it is the single fastest way to make a good recipe taste wrong.
What it tastes like
Sharp, clean, slightly floral acidity. Softer and rounder than lime.
What it does in a drink
Souring agent. It supplies the acid that balances sugar and stops a drink tasting flat.
Cocktails with lemons
Unlocks 16 recipes on Drinki.
Best known
- Aviation IBA Violette turns it sky-grey. Skip it and the drink still flies.
- Bee’s Knees IBA Prohibition-era cover-up for bad gin. Excellent with good gin.
- Sidecar IBA Sugar rim if you like. Paris, roughly a century ago.
- Whiskey Sour IBA The template every other sour is a remix of.
- White Lady IBA A sidecar in gin, with a silk collar of egg white.
- Bramble IBA Dick Bradsell, London, 1980s. Drizzle the liqueur so it bleeds down the ice.
- French 75 IBA Named after a field gun. It hits about that hard.
- Lemon Drop IBA Sherbet for adults, sugar rim mandatory.
- Paper Plane IBA Four equal parts, invented in 2008 and already a classic.
- Penicillin IBA Modern classic. The ginger and honey do the heavy lifting.
- Long Island Iced Tea IBA Five spirits and no tea. Proceed with respect.
- Hot Toddy Hot but never boiling — boiling water scalds the whisky.
- Amaretto Sour A splash of bourbon stops it turning into marzipan.
- Corpse Reviver #2 A breakfast drink, historically. Use your judgement.
- Tom Collins A gin sour, stretched long with soda.
- Bloody Mary Roll it between two glasses. Shaking flattens the tomato juice.
What it pairs with
The ingredients that turn up alongside lemons far more often than chance would predict.
Substitutes
Nothing substitutes for lemons convincingly.