Pegu Club - Forgotten Classic Cocktail

Pegu Club

There are countless cocktails named after their origin. These include the Pegu Club, whose roots go back to Myanmar. The recipe for this gin drink underwent minor changes in the first years of its existence. With another comes Tipsy Banker Honza Veselý.

Pegu Club was opened in 1882, at a time when Myanmar was still Burma and its largest city Yankon Rangoon. As one of the provinces of British India, it fell under British administration, and it was British military officers or civilian officials who were the main guests of the Pegu Club. So far from home, they simply needed a place to go for a drink. It is not clear exactly when they started ordering a gin cocktail named as well as the place of its origin, but it was probably in the first half of the 1920s. As early as 1927, his recipe appeared in Harry MacElhon's book Barflies and Cocktails, as a combination of gin, orange curaça, lime cordial plus Angostura and orange bitters. Three years later, Harry included the Craddock Pegu Club in The Savoy Cocktail Book, but in his presentation the cordial was replaced by lime juice, just one teaspoon for two parts of gin, one part of orange curaça, and after spraying from both mentioned bitters. In the same year, however, the book Cocktails by "Jimmy" (Late of Ciro’s London) was published, and it seems that only its author was able to hit the right balance of the cocktail and take away his sweets. Its recipe includes 4 parts of gin, 1 part of orange curaça and 1 part of lime juice, which also include Angostura and orange bitters after spraying. Tipsy Banker Honza Veselý also decided to add to the lime juice, and in addition he has one more recommendation: "I recommend replacing Curaçao with the Grand Marnier Cuvée du Centenaire, which has a very pleasant woody taste obtained by resting in an oak barrel inherited from cognac."