Pegu Club Cocktail

Pegu Club Cocktail Story

The British-owned Pegu Club was a Victorian gentleman’s club which opened its doors in 1882 as a haven for gin-thirsty colonists in Rangoon, Burma. Unlike that other famous Pacific-Asian cocktail, the Singapore Sling, the Pegu Club cocktail was only enjoyed by a colonizing elite class. It would not see much popularity until decades later, when it appeared in Harry McElhone’s 1922 publication Harry’s ABCs of Mixing Cocktails. Audrey Saunders introduced a modernized version of the cocktail when she opened her Pegu Club in Manhattan in 2005. The reinvented version is a sour that still retains the dry, spiced bite of the original.