The beauty of a riff is that sometimes they can become bigger than the classic on which they were based. And this is very much the case with the Turbo Gimlet at Melbourne bar, the Black Pearl.
A bit of an institution, the Turbo Gimlet is, in the words of general manager Matthew Linklater, a drink with “Never Never Southern Strength Gin and lime, lime, lime, lime, and more lime.
“We do love to look at classic cocktails and make them the best that we possibly can. For this, selecting the right gin was important, and then also having that cool story coming through with the lime four ways.”
The drink, which was created by former bar manager Shay Chamberlain, is an ode to her love of light, fresh drinks, but also her love of spirits with a bit of AVB and a definite kick.
“This drink was perfected by some of the previous team, so we are definitely standing on their shoulders,” said Matthew Linklater. “The important thing with this drink is the quality of the product.
“As it is such a simple drink,” he points out, “it’s very easy to get right but also very easy to get wrong. So making sure that the limes are good quality and fresh is extremely important.”
Having the lime represented in the drink four ways shows that a cocktail can not just be about what’s in it but more importantly, how it is used. Within the Turbo Gimlet, there is Lime Juice, Lime Oleo, Lime Bitters and Lime oil.
Lime, Lime & Lime
With so much lime, Linklater believes that the Gin which is used becomes particularly important. “Because it is so lime forward, it was important for us to have a gin with a big enough flavour to actually come through and be present.
This is why the bar has chosen to use the Southern Strength Gin from Australian distillers Never Never. “We like the spicy notes. It’s very juniper-forward as well with lots of fresh pine flavour. With the other kind of 40% gins, it still works really well, but for us, the Southern Strength was perfect.
“I think the Lime and the Southern Strength complement each other really well. The combination almost makes the drink seem more citrusy, and alive, and vibrant.
Ensuring the drink has a sense of movement is one thing that Linklater thinks really makes this cocktail work. “The drink is all about that vibrancy, even down to the way that we strain it without using a fine strainer just to keep those ice crystals in there, so it does feel a little bit more active and alive. we don’t want to keep all the ice shards, but it’s just all about texture.
“There are some shaken drinks that I think a fine strain is definitely necessary,” he said. “Drinks like a vesper, for sure, anything with mint, southside, etcetera, even a margarita. But for this particular one, we feel that a few shards in there are beneficial”.
Linklater points out that what really makes this drink, beyond the ingredients, is the technique used in making it. He stresses that having a nice, slow, steady strain, where you are not rushi9ng the process, goes a long way to add to the overall effect of the drink.
“You really want to make sure that you’re not really rushing it at all,” he said, “You want to let the ice kind of settle and then work its way through.”
Lime Oleo
Linklater believes that the trickiest part of the drink is the oleo but even that he says is essentially quite simple.
“We let two parts of Lime peel macerate on four parts caster sugar. We massage it and then we leave it in a container for generally about four hours. It’s all about massaging it through just to get the sugar covering the peel.
“After that has sat for about four hours, then we cut it back with one part water just to loosen it all up and then strain,” he said.
Lime Oil (as garnish)
Black Pearl prides itself on its sustainability, so they try to create a balance between twists and the actual fruit needed to be used. Therefore rather than twists, the bar uses little cheeks or little disks, in place of citrus twists.
“The lime oil comes from a cheek of lime that’s then squeezed over the top. So we have dispensed with using twists for all of our citruses – for our oranges, lemons, and limes – because we’ve found that we’re wasting way too much.” We had that imbalance between our twists and the actual fruit needed to be used, so we use little cheeks or little disks for all our citrus twists.
Turbo Gimlet
Ingredients
2 dashes Scrappy Lime Bitters
20mls (0.7oz) Lime Oleo
25mls (0.85oz) Fresh Lime Juice
50mls (1.7oz) Never Never Southern Strength Gin.
A dash of Lime oil as garnish
Instructions
Add all ingredients except the Lime oil to a shaker tin and give a hard shake. Slowly single strain into a chilled glass, then add lime oil from a lime disk.
