White Lady

When the bartender in Ernest Hemingway's book, Islands in the Stream, was asked for a White Lady '… he served her a bottle of that American mineral water with a lady in a white kinda mosquito netting dress sitting by a spring.'

To avoid that mistake, read on!

The White Lady cocktail was first recorded in Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book in 1930, although Harry MacElhone, famed cocktail creator of Harry's New York Bar in Paris, also lays claim to having invented it in the 1920s.

It's a clean-tasting drink that needs to be drunk very cold.

You need:

• 2 parts gin
• 1 part Cointreau
• 1 part lemon juice

Shake the ingredients together well with ice. Strain into a frosted cocktail glass and serve.

• Some recipes include an egg white, which adds a smoothness to the drink.
• For a Pink Lady, add a dash or two of grenadine.
• Replace the Cointreau with blue Curacao for a Blue Lady.
• And for the Perfect Lady, use crème de peche instead of the orange liqueur.