Casino
Old Tom gin with a little maraschino, lemon and orange bitters, shaken — an Aviation without the violet.
- Difficulty
- easy
- Prep time
- 3 min
- Strength
- 27% ABV
- Glassware
- Coupe glass
- Base
- gin
- Serves
- 1
Ingredients
- Old Tom gin50ml
- Maraschino liqueur8ml
- Fresh lemon juice10ml
- Orange bitters2 dashes
Garnish: Lemon twist, Cocktail cherry
Method
- Chill a coupe glass.
- Add the gin, maraschino, lemon juice and orange bitters to a shaker filled with ice.
- Shake hard for about 10 seconds.
- Strain into the chilled coupe, express a lemon twist over it and add a cherry.
Compared with the IBA specification
The International Bartenders Association lists this drink among its The Unforgettables. Its specification is a standard for training and competition — one reference, not the only right way to make the drink.
CocktailHQ
- 50ml old tom gin
- 7.5ml maraschino liqueur
- 10ml fresh lemon juice
- 2 dashes orange bitters
IBA
- 40 ml Old Tom Gin
- 10 ml Maraschino
- Luxardo
- 10 ml Fresh Lemon Juice
- 2 Dashes Orange Bitters
IBA ingredients as published at iba-world.com, retrieved 29 October 2026.
Allergen information
None of this recipe's ingredients, as commonly made, is associated with the fourteen major allergens.
Products vary, and this describes ingredients rather than the bottles you use — check every label. It is not a guarantee that a drink is suitable for anyone with an allergy. How this is worked out
Your version
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Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Cocktail shaker
Household swap: A large jar with a tight lid.
Glass and ice
No ice in the glass
Served up, the drink was chilled and diluted in the shaker or mixing glass and goes into a chilled glass without ice.
Over a large cube it stays cold longer, but keeps diluting — it becomes a different, slowly lengthening drink.
About 99ml once mixed
The recipe's coupe glass is typically 150–250ml.
- Workable:
- nick & nora glass, martini glass, champagne flute
- Oversized but acceptable:
- rocks glass, wine glass
- Unsuitable:
- highball glass
Needs a glass of about 104–110ml brimful.
How this is worked out
- A drink with no ice needs a little of the glass left empty — about a tenth — so it can be carried without spilling and has room for aroma.
- Filled to the top with cubes or packed crushed ice, roughly half to three-fifths of a glass is left for the drink.
- A drink built in the glass dilutes from the ice already there, so its melt water is not added on top.
- One large cube takes up roughly 65–125ml, from a sphere to a 5cm cube.
- Glass capacities are brimful and vary by maker — your own glass, measured with water, is the figure to trust.
Missing an ingredient?
Each swap below says what it changes and how to correct for it, so you can decide whether you are making this drink or a neighbouring one.
Instead of Old Tom Gin
Best substitute: Gin
This is the base in this drink.
Quantity: Same amount, plus 2.5ml simple syrup
Flavour impact: Sharper and more juniper-led.
What changes
Expect less sweetness and more intensity. Still a good drink, and a slightly different one.
- Sweetness ↓
- Less sweetness leaves the acid and the spirit more exposed, so the drink will taste sharper and drier than it should.
- Intensity ↑
- A more intensely flavoured ingredient will start to dominate the components around it.
- Character
- Both are botanical, and you lose juniper, rounded and lightly sweet, and you gain juniper-forward, dry and aromatic. Numbers can't see this: two ingredients can be identically sour and still smell nothing alike.
To correct for it
- Add a little more syrup, a small amount at a time, until the edges come back together.
- Scale it back by a third and let the other ingredients hold their share.
High confidenceShifts the drink
Make it better
- It is meant to be dry and strong. If you want a sour, you want an Aviation or a gin sour instead.
- With London Dry gin, add 2.5ml simple syrup to stand in for Old Tom's roundness.
- Chill the glass in the freezer for a few minutes beforehand — a warm glass takes the edge off a well-made drink fast.
- Shake hard for 12-15 seconds with plenty of ice — a proper shake chills and dilutes the drink in one step.
- Use freshly squeezed citrus juice rather than bottled — the aromatic oils fade fast once juiced, so squeeze just before making the drink.
- Express the citrus peel by pinching it, skin-side down, over the drink before dropping it in — this releases aromatic oils across the surface.
Rescue this drink
- Harsh
- Shake longer for more dilution; it is mostly gin.
- Sour
- Cut the lemon to 7.5ml. It should season the drink, not lead it.
- Tastes thin, with no weight to itgeneral guidance
- A short shaken drink with nothing rich in it depends on sugar and dilution for body. Try a slightly richer syrup — two parts sugar to one of water rather than equal parts — which adds weight without adding much more sweetness. Egg white or aquafaba does the same job more dramatically, and turns it into a sour.
- Too sweetgeneral guidance
- Add a small amount of fresh citrus juice or a dash of bitters to bring the balance back — adjust gradually and taste as you go.
- No cocktail shakergeneral guidance
- A large jar with a tight lid.
Make ahead & storage
Batch the base, finish at serving
Batch the 3 stable components days ahead and add fresh lemon juice when you pour.
Add about 27% water to the batch to replace what the ice would otherwise contribute, or it will pour noticeably harsher than a fresh one.
- Fresh lemon juice:
- Fresh citrus loses its aroma within hours and turns dull. Squeeze it on the day.
Make it lighter
As written, about 2.4 UK units at roughly 27% ABV once diluted. 3 of six ways to lighten it work for this recipe. Units are an estimate of what is in the glass, not advice about drinking.
A smaller serveSupportedabout 1.6 units, 27% ABV
Every measure at two-thirds. The balance is untouched because the proportions are; the only trade-off is a smaller drink — use a smaller glass so it doesn't look stingy.
- 33ml Old Tom Gin
- 5ml Maraschino Liqueur
- 7ml Lemon Juice
- 1ml Orange bitters
A longer serveSupportedsame 2.4 units, 15.4% ABV
Spirit, citrus and sugar topped with soda is how a sour becomes a Collins or a fizz — a well-trodden route. Note: the same alcohol in more liquid — weaker per sip, not fewer units.
- 50ml Old Tom Gin
- 8ml Maraschino Liqueur
- 10ml Lemon Juice
- 2ml Orange bitters
- 75ml Soda Water
Give it the spritz treatmentPossible, with a trade-offabout 1.2 units, 13% ABV
Sparkling wine for the spirit makes a lighter, French 75-like drink, but it loses the backbone that balanced the citrus — you may want less sugar. Add the fizz last, at the glass.
- 75ml Sparkling Wine
- 8ml Maraschino Liqueur
- 10ml Lemon Juice
- 2ml Orange bitters
Not recommended for this drink: reverse the ratio; split the base with a lower-strength modifier; replace part of it with an alcohol-free bottle
- Reverse the ratio. There is no wine-strength modifier — vermouth, sherry or Lillet — to swap measures with.
- Split the base with a lower-strength modifier. The recipe has no wine-strength modifier to move measure into, and choosing one for it would be writing a new drink.
- Replace part of it with an alcohol-free bottle. No bottle in this recipe has an alcohol-free counterpart in the catalogue, and we won't name one we haven't written up.
Or make something lighter by design: Virgin Daiquiri. All lighter drinks
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
dry, balanced, light — a sour-structured drink served straight up, no ice.
Dry
Dry → Sweet
Barely sweetened. The spirit and the acid are what you taste.
What drives it: Maraschino liqueur — carries the most sugar into the glass. Worked out partly from ingredient category rather than from recorded detail.
Balanced
Soft → Sharp
Enough acidity to keep the drink awake without dominating it.
What drives it: Fresh lemon juice — supplies the acidity. Worked out partly from ingredient category rather than from recorded detail.
Faintly bitter
Gentle → Bitter
A bitter edge you would only notice if you looked for it.
What drives it: Orange bitters — provides the bitterness. Worked out partly from ingredient category rather than from recorded detail.
Light
Light → Rich
Light-bodied. It refreshes rather than satisfies, which is usually the intention.
What drives it: Old Tom gin — adds most of the weight. Worked out partly from ingredient category rather than from recorded detail.
Very bold
Delicate → Bold
Very bold — concentrated, and served small for that reason.
What drives it: Old Tom gin — is the most concentrated thing in the glass. Worked out partly from ingredient category rather than from recorded detail.
What you smell first
- Citrus peelLeadsBefore the first sip
From Fresh lemon juice, Orange bitters, Lemon twist
Aromas marked as sitting above the drink reach you before the first sip — skipping that garnish changes the drink more than its size suggests.
How it was worked out
Each reading comes from the recipe's own recorded taste scores combined with what each ingredient contributes, weighted by how much of it is in the glass. About 28% of this drink by volume has detailed ingredient data behind it; the rest falls back to broader category rules.
How balance actually works →If it isn't right
What goes wrong with this drink, and why
Only the faults this particular recipe is actually prone to — open one for the likely cause, the adjustment, and what the adjustment costs you.
It's too sour
- Likely cause
- Fresh lemon juice varies more than any other ingredient in the drink. Limes differ by weeks of ripeness, and a sharp one can be half again as acidic as a mild one at the same measure.
- What to change
- Add sweetener a few millilitres at a time rather than diluting — you are correcting a ratio, not a concentration.
- What that does
- Sourness recedes and the drink gains a little weight.
- The trade-off
- Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry instead. Small additions, tasting between each, are slower but cheaper than a rebuild.
It's too strong
- Likely cause
- Old Tom gin dominates by design here — this is a drink built to be sipped, and the proportion of spirit to everything else is the point of it.
- What to change
- Shake a little longer, or add a measured 5–10ml of water. For a lasting change, pour a smaller measure of the base and keep the rest of the spec the same.
- What that does
- Alcohol presence drops and the aromatics open up — a slightly diluted spirit-forward drink usually smells better, not worse.
- The trade-off
- Go too far and it stops being the drink it was: spirit-forward drinks lose their character faster than long drinks do when watered.
It tastes harsh or hot
- Likely cause
- Almost always under-dilution. Shaking is how this drink gets its water — around 30% of the finished drink — and stopping early leaves alcohol heat that dilution would have rounded off.
- What to change
- Shake hard for the full time with plenty of ice; a short, gentle shake chills a little and dilutes even less.
- What that does
- The heat recedes, the drink tastes rounder, and flavours that were masked by alcohol come forward.
- The trade-off
- Dilution is a target, not a direction: past it the drink goes watery and loses concentration, which is harder to undo than harshness.
It's watery
- Likely cause
- Shaking adds water while it chills, and the two cannot be separated. Wet ice from a freezer door, or small cubes, will over-dilute before the drink is properly cold.
- What to change
- Use bigger, drier, colder ice and stop sooner. Chilling the glass first buys you time you would otherwise spend diluting.
- What that does
- More flavour concentration at the same temperature.
- The trade-off
- Under-dilute instead and the drink will taste harsh — the aim is the right amount of water, not the least.
It isn't cold enough
- Likely cause
- Served without ice, this drink is at its coldest the moment it leaves the shaker and warms from the first sip. A room-temperature glass takes a surprising amount of that cold straight back out.
- What to change
- Chill the coupe glass first — ten minutes in the freezer, or filled with ice and water while you mix — and strain the moment you stop shaking.
- What that does
- The drink stays in its best range for longer, and the first sip tastes the way it was balanced.
- The trade-off
- Very cold drinks smell of less, because aroma needs some warmth to leave the glass. A smaller serve that is finished cold beats a bigger one that is finished warm.
It doesn't smell of anything
- Likely cause
- The aroma you are missing is probably citrus peel, which sits above the drink rather than in it — skipping or under-expressing the garnish removes it entirely.
- What to change
- Express the peel over the surface with the skin facing the drink, then drop it in. Herbs go in the glass, not on the side.
- What that does
- Aroma arrives before flavour does, so the whole drink reads as more intense without a single measure changing.
- The trade-off
- The oil does land in the drink, though — an over-expressed peel adds a faint bitterness to the first mouthful.
It tastes one-dimensional
- Likely cause
- With 4 components there is nowhere for complexity to hide — a drink this simple is exposed by design, so a dull one is usually a dull ingredient rather than a missing step.
- What to change
- Change the quality of what is there before adding anything new: fresh citrus rather than bottled, a better base bottle, a dash of bitters. Bitters add layers at a scale nothing else matches.
- What that does
- More going on at the same strength and sweetness.
- The trade-off
- Adding a whole extra ingredient instead usually produces a muddier drink rather than a deeper one — and a better bottle costs more.
The garnish is all I can taste
- Likely cause
- The lemon twist sits right under your nose, so it arrives before the drink does. Expressed peel oil is intense, and a peel left in keeps releasing it.
- What to change
- Express the peel over the drink, then discard it rather than dropping it in.
- What that does
- The garnish frames the drink rather than replacing it.
- The trade-off
- Too little and the drink loses its first impression — the garnish is doing a real aromatic job here, so ease off rather than leave it out.
Each drink comes out different
- Likely cause
- With 4 measured components, a few millilitres' drift in each adds up, and a shaker loaded for four chills and dilutes differently from one made for one.
- What to change
- Measure every pour with a jigger, and shake no more than two drinks at a time. Pre-mix old Tom gin, maraschino liqueur, orange bitters in a bottle beforehand so each round starts from the same base.
- What that does
- The fifth drink of the evening tastes like the first, at the same strength and balance.
- The trade-off
- Smaller batches mean more rounds of shaking or stirring; pre-mixing saves time but only for what keeps.
Something else wrong? Open this drink in the Recipe Doctor.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 1/5
- Sourness
- 2/5
- Bitterness
- 1/5
- Strength
- 4/5
- Fruitiness
- 1/5
- Freshness
- 3/5
- Creaminess
- 0/5
- Smokiness
- 0/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate only- Calories
- 145 kcal
- Sugar
- 3 g
- Carbohydrates
- 4 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 2.4
- US standard drinks
- 1.37
- ABV
- 27%
- Serving size
- 90 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~134 kcal from alcohol, ~11 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 109–181 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Assumes Old Tom gin at 42% ABV, maraschino at 32% and about 25% dilution from shaking.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
Aviation
Add a bar spoon of crème de violette and more lemon.
What kind of drink this is
The structure behind the recipe
A shaken build: a sour-structured gin-based drink, served straight up, no ice — light and lively in the mouth.
Sour-structured
Something sour and something sweet held in balance over a base — the structure behind the whole sour family and everything descended from it.
Base
Old Tom gin
Sour element
Fresh lemon juice
Sweet element
Maraschino liqueur
Bitter element
Orange bitters
Drinks built this way are collected as the Sour family.
Technique
shaken
Ice is thrown against the liquid and against itself, chipping fragments off and driving air through the mix. Chilling, dilution and aeration all happen at once and cannot be separated.
A lighter, briefly frothy body and a cloudy appearance that settles as it stands. The aeration blunts alcoholic heat, which is why a shaken drink tastes softer than a stirred one of the same strength.
What it ruins: Clarity, and any carbonation. A shaken spirits-only drink arrives cloudy with ice shards floating in it, and shaking anything fizzy is the one rule with no exceptions.
Everything about shaking →How the technique works →Dilution
During mixing, then strained
Water from ice typically makes up around 30% of the finished drink for a shaken build (commonly 25–35%). Dilution is an ingredient here, not a side effect.
Why dilution is an ingredient →Served
Straight up, no ice
Coupe glass · 90ml
Chilled during mixing and then strained away from the ice, so it arrives at its coldest and most concentrated and warms from the first sip — which is why 90ml is the right size for it.
Texture and aroma
Shaking whips air through the drink, giving a lighter, briefly frothy body that settles as it stands.
Aroma arrives before flavour does. A citrus twist is expressed over the surface so its oils sit on top of the drink — skipping it changes the drink more than its size suggests.
Where to go from here
Each of these is here because of something specific about this drink, not as a standard set of links.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Casino
Printed in early twentieth-century bar books, including Hugo Ensslin's (1916) and the Savoy Cocktail Book (1930), as gin seasoned with dashes of maraschino, orange bitters and lemon.
Early recipes give the seasonings in dashes. The IBA uses 40ml Old Tom with 10ml each of maraschino and lemon and serves it over ice; this is served up.
Family
Sour2 parts spirit · 1 part citrus · 1 part sweetener — shaken, strained, served up or over ice.
On drinks history
Cocktail origin stories are frequently repeated and rarely evidenced. Our history section separates what is documented from what is folklore rather than picking whichever version reads best.
History and culture →Try this next
- Twentieth CenturyTwentieth Century
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- Gimlet
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- Tommy's MargaritaTommy's Margarita
You may like this because it shares a sour-forward profile with the Casino, but uses tequila instead of gin.
Use up your ingredients
Bought a bottle just for this? Here's what else it's good for.
Related tools
Scale this for a party
Work out bottles, mixers, ice and total alcohol units for any number of guests.
How far a bottle goes
Drinks per bottle, which bottle runs out first, batching — and the cost, at your own prices.
Recipe confidence
Well attested in print; the seasonings were never precisely fixed.