Gin pahit is an alcoholic drink made with gin and

Angostura bitters Angostura bitters () is a concentrated bitters (herbal alcoholic preparation) based on gentian, herbs, and spices, by House of Angostura in Trinidad and Tobago. It is typically used for flavouring beverages or, less often, food. The bitters we ...

, as enjoyed in colonial Malaya and generally associated with British colonial era. The name means "bitter gin" in Malay. The recipe, according to the food and beverage service of the

Raffles Hotel Raffles Hotel is a British colonial-style luxury hotel in Singapore. It was established by Armenian hoteliers, the Sarkies Brothers, in 1887. The hotel was named after British statesman Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, the founder of modern S ...

, is 1½ ounces of gin and ½ ounce of

. At least one book on drinks from the 1930s describes it as identical to a pink gin, which would imply considerably less bitters. It was referred to by the writer

W. Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

. For example, his short story, " P. & O." (Copyright 1926), Maugham's character Gallagher, an Irishman who had lived in the Federated Malay States for 25 years, orders the drink. Gin pahit appears in several other Maugham stories, including " The Yellow Streak", set in Borneo, "Footprints in the Jungle", "The Book-Bag" and "The Letter" all set in Malaya, in " The Outstation" (Two Malay boys,..., came in, one bearing gin pahits,..), and in the novel '' The Narrow Corner'' (opening line of Chapter xviii). Maugham himself spent many years in

Maritime Southeast Asia Maritime Southeast Asia comprises the countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and East Timor. Maritime Southeast Asia is sometimes also referred to as Island Southeast Asia, Insular Southeast Asia or Oceanic Sout ...

and was acquainted with the drink from his travels. He refers to gin pahit in the opening pages of his 1930 travelogue "The Gentleman in the Parlour" (Chapter iii). The Raffles Long Bar in Singapore listed gin pahit on the cocktail board as late as 1985 but other references to pink gins are correct – a traditional Royal Navy drink ("..one had no ice, d'you see?") of gin and bitters where the bitters were added to the glass first and the barman would then ask "In or Out, Sir?" The drink is also mentioned by Captain Biggar in '' The Return of Jeeves'' by

P.G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jee ...

. David A. Embury states that this drink is made with yellow gin and 3 dashes of Angostura bitters to 2 dashes of absinthe, in ''

The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks ''The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks'' is a book about cocktails by David A. Embury, first published in 1948. The book is noteworthy for its witty, highly opinionated and conversational tone, as well as its categorization of cocktails into two main ty ...

''.

References

Pahit Cocktails with bitters {{cocktail-stub

See also

References