7/9/2020 Gibson (cocktail) - Wikipedia

Gibson (cocktail)
The Gibson is a mixed drink made with gin and dry vermouth, and
often garnished with a pickled onion. In its modern incarnation, it's Gibson
considered a cousin of the more-ubiquitous martini, distinguished Cocktail
mostly by garnishing with an onion instead of an olive. But the
earliest recipes for a Gibson -- including the first known recipe
published in 1908 -- are differentiated more by how they treat the
addition of bitters.[1]

Other pre-prohibition recipes all omit bitters and none of them

garnish with an onion. Some garnish with citrus twists. Others use
no garniture at all. There is no known recipe for the Gibson
garnishes with an onion before William Boothby's 1908 Gibson
Recipe.[2] Some sources use other garnishment than the onion into
the 1930s and beyond, but still none use bitters. The Polished
Gibson is garnished with a potato. The drink is traditionally made
with gin, but the vodka Gibson is also common.

History
Type Cocktail
The exact origin of the Gibson is unclear, with numerous popular Primary
tales and theories about its genesis. According to one theory, it was alcohol by
Gin
invented by Charles Dana Gibson, who created the popular Gibson
volume
Girl illustrations. Supposedly, he challenged Charley Connolly, the
bartender of the Players Club in New York City, to improve upon a Served stirred
martini. As the story goes, Connolly simply substituted an onion for Standard silverskin onion
the olive and named the drink after the patron.[3] garnish

Another version now considered more probable recounts a 1968 Standard Cocktail
interview with a relative of a prominent San Francisco businessman drinkware glass
named Walter D. K. Gibson, who claimed to have created the drink
at the Bohemian Club in the 1890s. [4] Charles Clegg, when asked
about it by Herb Caen, also said it was from San Francisco, not New Commonly
York. [5] Other reporting supports this theory; Edward Townsend, used
6 cl (2 ounces) (6
former vice president of the Bohemian Club, is credited with the first parts) gin
ingredients
mention of the Gibson in print, in a humorous essay he wrote for the 1 cl (0.33 ounce)
New York World published in 1898.[6] (1 part) dry
vermouth
Another theory is that the Gibson after whom the drink was named
was a popular California onion farmer, as seen in the publication Preparation
Hutchings' illustrated California magazine: Volume 1 (p. 194) by Stir well in a
James Mason Hutchings in 1857: shaker with ice,
then strain into a
chilled martini
ONION VALLEY. During the winter of 1852 and '53, glass. Garnish
snow fell in Onion Valley to the depth of twenty-five feet,
and serve
... Even the towns of Gibsonville, Seventy-Six, Pine
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Grove, Whiskey Diggings, and several others, did their

trading here.

Other stories of the drink's origins feature apocryphal businessmen, William Boothby's 1908 Gibson
including an American diplomat who served in Europe during Recipe
Prohibition. Although said to be a tetotaller, he often had to attend
cocktail receptions, where he'd ask for a martini glass filled with cold
water, garnished with a small onion so he could distinguish his drink from others. A similar story
involves an investment banker named Gibson, who would take his clients out for the proverbial three-
martini business lunches. He purportedly had the bartender serve him cold water so he could stay sober
while his clients became intoxicated; the cocktail onion garnish served to distinguish his beverage from
those of his clients.

A third version, supported by Kazuo Uyeda in "Cocktail Techniques," states that Gibsons started as very
dry martinis garnished with a cocktail onion to distinguish them from traditional martinis, but as the
fondness for drier martinis became popular the onion became the only difference.

Although bartenders' guides sometimes gave the recipe as 50/50 gin and vermouth, Gibsons in the early
days were much drier than other martinis. Ironically, the earliest mention of a recipe for the cocktail
doesn't call for an onion at all. [1] (https://elementalmixology.blog/2014/05/20/from-martinez-cocktail
-to-paul-bunyan-the-martini-cocktail-and-its-relatives-before-prohibition/)

See also
Martini (cocktail)

List of cocktails

References
1. Wondrich, David (2015). Imbibe! Updated and Revised Edition: From Absinthe Cocktail to Whiskey
Smash, a Salute in Stories and Drinks to "Professor" Jerry Thomas, Pioneer of the American Bar (htt
ps://books.google.com/books/about/Imbibe_Updated_and_Revised_Edition.html?id=IBqdBAAAQBA
J). Retrieved 13 August 2019.
2. Arthurs, Deborah (26 May 2016). "Garden to glass cocktail recipe: Pickled spring onion martini is a
neat spring twist on a Gibson" (http://metro.co.uk/2016/05/26/garden-to-glass-pickled-spring-onion-m
artini-is-a-neat-spring-twist-on-a-gibson-5895147/). The Metro. Retrieved 6 July 2017.
3. "Gibson Cocktail" (http://imbibemagazine.com/gibson-cocktail-recipe/). Imbibe Magazine. 31 August
2017. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
4. "Where the Gibson was Born" (https://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/article/Where-the-Gibson-was-
born-3163635.php). San Francisco Chronicle. 26 April 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2019.
5. "One Man's San Francisco", Chronicle Books, p.155, Herb Caen
6. "A Distinctly Western Cocktail" (https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203658504574192
021698351000). Wall Street Journal. 30 May 2009. Retrieved 13 August 2019.

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