Well, there is no such thing as a Sugarcane Gimlet in any of the acknowledged books on cocktails. But this is pretty much a gimlet with sugarcane juice in it. Therefore, my lame attempt at naming this. I would be really glad if any of you want to claim this drink and name it.

This morning I woke up after dreaming about sugarcanes. I have no idea why. Sharmila did not even say “Sweet” Dreams (haha!) before I went to sleep. But once I woke up, I started thinking about all that street side sugarcane juice we used to have (“ganne ka joos”) when we were kids.

Then I started thinking about how to incorporate it in cocktails. (You have to be an idiot like me to get up in the morning and start thinking about alcohols 🙂 ). The problem was how to get myself some sugarcane juice. Anyways, after some failed internet searches, Sharmila came to the rescue by suggesting a Asian store. Sure enough, they had a can of sugarcane juice from Thailand (although 65% diluted).

I am going to try it out with gin, vodka and rum to see how it works out.

This is with gin. Given the sweetness of sugarcane juice, I used Tanqueray Rangpur gin (to get the aroma of Rangpur limes from Bangladesh) and muddled in a little bit of chili to finish every sip with a bite. And threw in a few drops of lime juice.

The end product was good but not as good as I was hoping. There is a big difference between freshly squeezed sugarcane juice and canned ones. Sharmila told me already where I can go stand in a queue and get freshly squeezed sugarcane juice in Atlanta. It is too late now. For today, I am going to keep experimenting with the canned juice. Also, if you try this yourself, pour it in a martini glass. The ice does not help an already diluted juice.