Cocktail · Light & sessionable
Gin Rickey
Gin, lime, soda, zero sugar — the driest refreshment in the highball family.
How to order it: Half a lime squeezed and dropped in. D.C.'s official native cocktail.
Flavor profile
The recipe
- 2 oz gin
- ½ lime, squeezed and dropped in
- Top with club soda
- Build over ice in a highball
- No sugar — that's the point
The story
Washington, D.C.'s native cocktail — officially so designated in 2011 — was born at Shoomaker's bar near the Capitol in the 1880s and named for Colonel Joe Rickey, a Democratic lobbyist who favored his bourbon with lime and soda and, pointedly, no sugar. When bartenders swapped in gin, the variation eclipsed the original, and Rickey reportedly grumbled about being remembered for a drink rather than his political handiwork — a very Washington fate. It remains one of the only classics with zero sweetener, an austerity that reads as confidence. The Gin Rickey endures because in the swamp heat of a Potomac summer, dryness isn't a style choice; it's survival.
Adjacent pours