The Pegu Club or the Pegu is a

gin-based cocktail A cocktail is a mixed drink typically made with a distilled liquor (such as arrack, brandy, cachaça, gin, rum, tequila, vodka, or whiskey) as its base ingredient that is then mixed with other ingredients or garnishments. Sweetened liqueurs ...

that was the signature drink of Burma's

Pegu Club Pegu Club ( my, ပဲခူးကလပ်) is a recognized heritage site in Yangon, Myanmar, which was a Victorian-style Gentlemen's club founded in 1871 during the British colonization of Burma. The building was built in 1880 and finished in 188 ...

. Located just outside

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

, the club was named after the Pegu, a Burmese river, and its members were those Britons who were senior government and military officials and prominent businessmen.

History

First appearance (1923)

The cocktail first appeared in "Harry" of Ciro's 1923 book ''ABC of Mixing Cocktails''. The original used preserved lime juice instead of fresh. Later cocktail books, like ''The Savoy Cocktail Book'' would begin to omit the brand name "Rose's" when specifying the lime juice. There's a lack of clarity when bartenders may have begun using fresh lime juice because of this ambiguity. The Pegu Club is best served in a chilled glass and is considered a hot weather drink. Its taste is reminiscent of grapefruit and some bartenders will garnish it with a twist of grapefruit peel or slice of fresh grapefruit, although it is commonly served with a slice of lime to complement the lime juice in the drink.

Revival (2000s-present)

The cocktail experienced a revival in the early 2000s. Bartender

Audrey Saunders Audrey Saunders (born 1962) is an American bartender, considered one of the world's most famous bartenders and New York's most famous female bartender. She is most well known as the operating partner and creative lead of Pegu Club, a bar in New Yor ...

founded a bar by the same name on West Houston Street in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

.Fabricant, Florence. "Off the Menu." ''New York Times,'' Late Edition (East Coast) ed., Aug 31 2005, p. 2. ''ProQuest.'' Web. 1 Dec. 2021 . New York City's

was credited with having "kicked the cocktail revival in New York City into high gear when it opened in 2005 and quickly became one of the most influential cocktail bars in the world."Simonson, Robert. "Pegu Club, a Pioneering Manhattan Cocktail Bar, Won’t Reopen." Apr 30 2020. Web. ''ProQuest.'' 1 Dec. 2021. It closed in 2020, in part due to restrictions imposed in response to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

TimeOut Time-out, Time Out, or timeout may refer to: Time * Time-out (sport), in various sports, a break in play, called by a team * Television timeout, a break in sporting action so that a commercial break may be taken * Timeout (computing), an enginee ...

, after it closed, wrote that as "one of the best bars in New York, Pegu Club was also one of the seminal bars of the

craft cocktail movement The craft cocktail movement is a social movement spurred by the cocktail renaissance, a period of time in the 21st century characterized by a revival and re-prioritization of traditional recipes and methods in the bar industry. History The cockt ...

. Countless bartenders worked here that went on to open their own spots that New Yorkers have come to love."

Notes

{{Reflist *Ted Haigh, ''Vintage Spirits and Forgotten Cocktails: From the Alamagoozlum to the Zombie'' (Quarry Books, 2009), pp. 226ff.

External links

Pegu Club drink recipe - Esquire
Cocktails with gin Cocktails with bitters

History

First appearance (1923)

Revival (2000s-present)

See also

Notes

External links