This cocktail is an all-time favorite. A bit like a margarita for gin lovers. Slightly sweet, a little sour, and all over delicious.
Pegu Club Cocktail Recipe
2 ounces dry gin
1/2 ounce orange Curacao
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
1 Dash Angostura Bitters
1 Dash Orange Bitters
Mix all ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake well, and strain into a chilled glass.
This drink can be adjusted to your taste, or appreciation of bitterness. Some people add a bit more orange liquor if they prefer sweetness, others, like myself, prefer a bit more fresh lime. Either way, this cocktail is a delight.
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The origins of the drink stem from the british colonial Pegu Club, a colonial outpost for “gentleman” in Rangoon, Burma. References to this club abound in colonial era literature, inlcuding of course, the work of Rudyard Kipling. Here’s a reference from his From Sea to Sea, Letters of Travel, published in 1913. We don’t know if the Pegu Cocktail was yet served at the Pegu Club, but there were certainly mixed drinks. Here is the book’s title for the second chapter:
The River of the Lost Footsteps and the Golden Mystery upon its Banks. The Iniquity of Jordan. Shows how a Man may go to the Shway Dagon Pagoda and see it not and to the Pegu Club and hear too much. A Dissertation on Mixed Drinks