Gin Pahit

Gin Pahit is an alcoholic drink made with gin and bitters, as enjoyed in colonial Malaya. The name means "bitter gin" in Malay.

The recipe, according to the food and beverage service of the Raffles Hotel, is 1½ ounces of gin and ½ ounce of Angostura bitters. At least one book on drinks from the 1930s describes it as identical to a pink gin, which would imply considerably less bitters.

Often referred to by the writer W. Somerset Maugham. For example his short story, "P. & O." (Copyright 1926), Maugham's character Gallagher, an Irishman who had lived in the Federated Malay States for 25 years, orders the drink. Gin pahit appears in several other Maugham stories, including "Footprints in the Jungle", "The Book-Bag" and "The Letter" all set in Malaya, and in the novels "The Narrow Corner" (opening line of Chapter xviii), and in "The Outstation" (Two Malay boys,..., came in, one bearing gin pahits,..).

Maugham himself spent many years in the Malay archipelago and was most certainly acquainted with the drink from his travels. He refers to gin pahit in the opening pages of his 1930 travelogue "The Gentelman in the Parlour" (Chapter iii). The Raffles Long Bar in Singapore listed Gin Pahit on the cocktail board as late as 1985 but other references to Pink Gins are correct - a traditional Royal Navy drink ("..one had no ice, d'you see?") of Gin and bitters where the bitters were added to the glass first and barman would then ask "In or Out, Sir?"


Famous quotes containing the word gin:

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