Southside Cocktail

A Southside Cocktail is an alcoholic beverage made with gin, lime juice, simple syrup, and mint.

Southside Cocktail Info!

You're likely to get different answers from your bartenders or cocktail historians about the South Side. There are a lot of people that say it's a Gimlet with mint served in a cocktail glass and Others describe it as a gin-based Mint Julep. The drink could have been named after the South Side neighborhood of Chicago or Southside Sportsmen's Club in Long Island. Whatever the case may have been, the South Side cocktail is a refreshing mix of gin, citrus, sugar, and mint and is well worth your time.

It can be traced back to 1916 when the recipe appeared in Huge Enslinn’s book "Recipes for Mixed Drinks" as the South Side Fizz. His recipe called for gin and lemon and lime juices, sugar and mint, as well as club soda. You get the South Side today if you remove the bubbles and cut one of the citrus fruit.

Multiple sources attribute the creation of the South Side to the 21 Club in New York. This bar poured many South Sides over the years. It's likely, however, that the bar just popularized it and did not invent it.

Another origin story I have read is that the drink may have been the preferred beverage of Al Capone, whose gang dominated Chicago's South Side. The gin imported by Capone's rivals on the North Side of Chicago was smooth, and usually consumed with ginger ale. However, the gin consumed by Al Capone's gang had a rougher finish and required more sweeteners to make it palatable. Thus the South Side was born, maybe... 😉