Cocktail recipe
Bramble
A blackberry ribbon threads through a crisp gin-and-lemon sour served over crushed ice.
Ingredients
- 60 ml (2 oz) gin
- 30 ml (1 oz) fresh lemon juice
- 15 ml (½ oz) simple syrup (1:1)
- 15 ml (½ oz) blackberry liqueur, crème de mûre style
- Garnish: 2 fresh blackberries and 1 short lemon peel
Preparation
Shake gin, lemon and syrup with ice, then strain over crushed ice in a rocks glass. Slowly trickle the blackberry liqueur over the top so it threads downward. Finish with two berries and a short lemon peel.
Glassware
Rocks glass
History
Dick Bradsell created the Bramble while managing Fred's Club in Soho, London, in the mid-1980s. His first-person recollections, published by Difford's Guide from accounts he wrote in 2001 and 2015, connect the drink to memories of picking blackberries and to the then-emerging use of crème de mûre. The original structure is gin, lemon and sugar over crushed ice, with blackberry liqueur poured through to create the signature dark trail. Exact calendar-year claims are less secure than Bradsell's own 'mid-eighties' recollection. **Attribution confidence:** See sourced account and qualifications above.
Mixology View
Bradsell's first-person account makes this one of the better-attributed modern classics. The blackberry liqueur should streak through the ice, not disappear into a uniformly purple shake.