The Southside: How to Make the Crisp Gin-and-Mint Cocktail of Summer 2026 (and the 8 Gins That Make It Sing)
If the Gimlet is the crisp one and the Bee's Knees is the honeyed one, the Southside is the garden one. Picture a gin sour shaken with fresh lime and a fistful of mint: bright, herbaceous, faintly sweet, and dangerously easy to drink on a hot afternoon. It is the cocktail that supposedly ran the tables at country clubs and speakeasies a century ago, and it is having a very good summer in 2026. Best of all, it needs nothing exotic — gin, lime, mint, sugar — and it takes two minutes.
This is the latest in our summer gin series, alongside the Gimlet and the Bee's Knees. As always, we finish with the eight gins from the store that make it sing.
The 8 gins for your Southside
What is a Southside?
The Southside is, at heart, a gin sour with mint: gin, fresh lime juice, simple syrup, and fresh mint leaves, shaken hard with ice and served either up in a coupe or over ice in a rocks glass. Think of it as a Gimlet that walked through an herb garden, or a gin mojito without the soda and fuss. The mint does not overwhelm — shaken (not muddled to death), it perfumes the drink and lifts the lime into something cooling and green.
Its origins are gloriously disputed — claimed by a Chicago South Side crowd, a Long Island country club, and New York's 21 Club, among others — but everyone agrees on the shape of the drink. Tart, cold, minty, and clean.
The recipe (serves 1)
The balance you want is roughly two parts gin to three-quarters part each of lime and syrup, adjusted to taste:
Ingredients:
• 2 oz gin
• 3/4 oz fresh lime juice (never bottled)
• 3/4 oz simple syrup (equal parts sugar and water)
• 6–8 fresh mint leaves
• Mint sprig, to garnish
Method: Add the gin, lime juice, simple syrup, and mint leaves to a shaker. Fill with ice and shake hard for 10–15 seconds — the vigorous shake is what releases the mint's aroma and chills and dilutes the drink properly. Double-strain (through the shaker strainer and a fine mesh strainer) into a chilled coupe to catch the mint flecks, or strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass for a longer, more casual pour. Garnish with a slapped mint sprig — a quick clap between your palms wakes up the oils. Taste; if your limes are especially tart, a few more drops of syrup smooths it out.
The 8 gins that make it sing
London Dry is the classic backbone. The Southside was built on juniper-forward gin, and a crisp London Dry keeps it clean and bright. Tanqueray Gin London Dry 750Ml ($27.99) is the benchmark — punchy juniper and citrus that cut cleanly through lime and mint — and it is a value hero at its price. Bombay Sapphire Gin ($28.09) is a touch more floral and delicate, letting the mint step forward, while Fords Gin ($27.99) is a bartender favorite engineered for exactly this kind of shaken citrus cocktail: balanced, smooth, and never harsh.
Citrus-forward gins are a natural fit. Because lime is doing the heavy lifting, a gin with its own citrus tilt makes the drink pop. Malfy Gin Con Limone ($37.99), an Italian gin bursting with Amalfi lemon, turns the Southside into something that tastes like a Mediterranean garden. Its sibling Malfy Gin Con Original ($37.09) is juniper-and-Italian-lemon-peel in a rounder key — still bright, a little softer.
Botanical and floral gins add complexity. Hendrick's Gin ($45.99), with its cucumber-and-rose signature, makes an unusually cooling, almost spa-like Southside — a garnish of cucumber alongside the mint is fair game. The Botanist Gin ($42.99), an Islay gin foraged with 22 local botanicals, brings a wildflower-meadow complexity that rewards slow sipping. And for a smoother, rounder splurge, Tanqueray Gin No. 10 750Ml ($42.99) is distilled with fresh whole citrus — it makes arguably the most luxurious Southside on this list, with a silkier body and a bright grapefruit-and-lime lift.
Three mistakes that flatten a Southside
Bottled lime juice. This is the one that matters most. The Southside lives and dies on fresh lime — the bottled stuff tastes dull and slightly bitter, and no amount of good gin will rescue it. Squeeze right before you shake.
Muddling the mint to death. You want to perfume the drink, not turn it into pesto. Add whole leaves to the shaker and let the hard shake do the work; over-muddled mint releases bitter chlorophyll and leaves you chewing your cocktail. If you strain well, the drink stays clean and green without a single leaf in the glass.
Skimping on the shake. A Southside needs a genuinely hard, 10-to-15-second shake — that is what chills it, aerates it, and pulls the aromatic oils out of the mint. A limp shake gives you a warm, flat, under-diluted drink. Shake like you mean it, and strain the moment it is frosty.
Make it your own
The Southside is a template as much as a recipe. Top it with a splash of soda and you have a Southside Fizz — a cousin of the Tom Collins. Swap the coupe for tall and it edges toward the highball territory of a Gin & Tonic. Want an elegant sparkling option for the same crowd? The French 75 is your bottle of choice. And if you like a bitter, spirit-forward finish to the night, nothing beats a Negroni.
Shake one tonight
Fresh lime, real mint, a good gin, and fifteen seconds of hard shaking — that is the entire Southside. It is the drink to make when the afternoon is hot and you want something that tastes like a garden. Pick your gin from our Gin collection, grab something from Ready to Drink for the nights you would rather not reach for the shaker, and see which bottles are flying off the shelf in Best Sellers. Shop gin for your Southside →
