Keeping it simple, sippable and seasonal: Southside Cocktail

Fresh mint, gin, lime juice and simple syrup create the eminently drinkable summer classic, the Southside. Recipe below.

THIS COCKTAIL HAD US AT ITS NAME. THE SOUTHSIDE. Since moving into our new old house more than five years ago, we have embraced living on Chicago’s south side. Well, this is a city of neighborhoods. Technically, we live in Pilsen (and the Heart of Chicago), west of the Near West Side. But we have never lived south of downtown before, so we think of ourselves as south siders now.

Our Milwaukee daughter Laurel and her boyfriend visited this weekend. We mostly hung out south of downtown. Getting two meals in one day in Chinatown. Visiting the excellent Oriental Institute in Hyde Park. Walking around the neighborhood. Saturday night found us all in our kitchen, with Laurel’s boyfriend mixing up some cocktails, using mint they had brought from Laurel’s garden, gin, lime juice and simple syrup. They tasted as summery and fresh and bright as the ingredient list sounds. And when he told us the name—Southside—we knew we would be making it here.

The Southside (or South Side) has multiple origin stories. The Southside Sportsmen’s Club on Long Island and Manhattan’s 21 Club both have versions they claim are the originals. We prefer the claim that it started on Chicago’s South Side. Some versions use lime juice, some lemon. Some use bitters. We kept ours limey and simple. We have numerous gins on hand, some of them lovely craft gins. Again, we kept it simple, choosing our go-to dry London gin, Bombay Sapphire. Some recipes have you muddle the mint, but we found shaking it with ice and the other ingredients beat it up plenty. And finally, some have you double strain the drink to avoid tiny flecks of mint—we embraced them.

Print Pin

Southside Cocktail

Fresh mint, gin, lime juice and simple syrup create the eminently sippable summer classic, the Southside.

Course Drinks

Servings 1 cocktail

Ingredients

• 5 mint leaves, plus another for garnish
• 2 ounces gin (we used Bombay Sapphire)
• 1 ounce lime juice
• 3/4 ounce simple syrup

Instructions

• In a cocktail shaker, combine 5 mint leaves, gin, lime juice and simple syrup. Add ice and shake until very cold, at least 20 seconds.
• Strain into a martini coupe. Lay a mint leaf in the palm of one hand and smack it with your other hand to bruise it and release its aroma. Add it to the drink as a garnish. Serve.