Corpse Reviver No. 2
Gin, triple sec, Lillet Blanc and lemon juice in an absinthe-rinsed glass — a sharp, citrus-forward classic.
- Difficulty
- advanced
- Prep time
- 6 min
- Strength
- 25.6% ABV
- Glassware
- Coupe glass
- Base
- gin
- Serves
- 1
Ingredients
- Absinthe5ml
For rinsing the chilled glass, then discarded — not a measured pour into the drink
- Gin25ml
- Triple sec25ml
- Lillet Blanc25ml
- Fresh lemon juice25ml
Garnish: Lemon twist (optional)
Method
- Chill a coupe glass, then add the absinthe and swirl to coat the inside completely.
- Discard the excess absinthe.
- Add the gin, triple sec, Lillet Blanc and lemon juice to a shaker with ice.
- Shake hard for around 15 seconds.
- Double-strain into the prepared coupe.
- Express a lemon twist over the glass if using.
Equipment
Don't have everything? Here's what works instead.
Cocktail shaker
Household swap: A secure jar or bottle with a tight-fitting lid, shaken firmly.
Fine strainer
Household swap: A small kitchen tea strainer held over the glass.
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 Lillet Blanc
Best substitute: Dry Vermouth
This is the modifier in this drink.
Flavour impact: Drier and sharper, losing Lillet Blanc's honeyed, slightly floral character.
What changes
Expect less sweetness. 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.
- Character
- Both are light, and you lose honeyed, citrusy and gently bitter, and you gain dry, herbal and crisp. 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.
Moderate confidenceA workable substitute, though it noticeably changes the drink's roundness.Shifts the drink
Make it better
- Measure precisely — this is an equal-parts drink, and even small imbalances throw the whole thing off.
- Chill the coupe in the freezer beforehand; a warm glass undoes the absinthe rinse fast.
- A few drops of absinthe swirled around the glass is enough — don't pour it in as a measured ingredient.
- 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
- Too sweet
- Triple sec brands vary a lot in sweetness — use a drier curaçao or cut it back to 20ml.
- Absinthe overpowers the drink
- Use fewer drops for the rinse and make sure you discard the excess fully before shaking.
- Tastes watery or unbalanced
- Shake harder and strain immediately — this drink is best served the moment it's made.
- You cannot smell itgeneral guidance
- Most of a drink's aroma is on top of it, not in it. Squeeze the peel skin-side-down over the surface before dropping it in — the oil should visibly spray. A twist placed in the glass without being expressed contributes almost nothing. Aroma also fades fastest of anything in a drink, so garnish at the moment of serving rather than in advance.
- Too sourgeneral guidance
- Add a little more sweetener (simple syrup or the cocktail's usual sweetening ingredient), a small amount at a time.
- Served too warmgeneral guidance
- Chill the glass, ice and every ingredient ahead of time — a warm pour is the fastest way to lose a cold drink's balance. For one serving, there's no real fix beyond rebuilding it properly chilled; for a batch, keep everything refrigerated until the moment of serving and add ice last.
- Under-diluted (tastes harsh or too concentrated)general guidance
- For one serving, stir in a few drops of chilled water to open it up. For a batch, extend the shake time slightly on the next round.
- No cocktail shakergeneral guidance
- A secure jar or bottle with a tight-fitting lid, shaken firmly.
- No cocktail strainergeneral guidance
- A small kitchen tea strainer held over the glass.
Make ahead & storage
Batch the base, finish at serving
Batch the 4 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.
What it tastes like
The taste, and what drives it
dry, sharp, very 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: Triple sec — carries the most sugar into the glass.
Sharp
Soft → Sharp
Properly sharp. This is the axis the drink is built on.
What drives it: Fresh lemon juice — supplies the acidity.
Gently bitter
Gentle → Bitter
Bitterness as structure — it stops the drink tasting like squash without being the point.
What drives it: Gin — provides the bitterness.
Very light
Light → Rich
Almost weightless in the mouth — closer to a long soft drink than to a sipper.
What drives it: Gin — adds most of the weight.
Bold
Delicate → Bold
Bold. This drink is the loudest thing on the table.
What drives it: Gin — is the most concentrated thing in the glass.
What you smell first
- Citrus peelLeadsBefore the first sip
From Gin, Triple sec, Lillet Blanc, Fresh lemon juice, Lemon twist (optional)
- Juniper and botanicals
From Gin
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. Almost everything in this drink has detailed ingredient data behind it.
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 — each with 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. Overshoot and you will be reading the too-sweet entry above instead.
It's too bitter
- Likely cause
- Gin is doing this deliberately, but bitterness also *builds* across a drink rather than announcing itself — the last mouthful is more bitter than the first even though nothing changed.
- What to change
- Lengthen it slightly, or add a small amount of sweetener. Do not add more of anything sour; acid sharpens bitterness rather than covering it.
- What that does
- The bitterness softens and the drink gets longer. If you were hoping to keep it short and strong, this is the trade you are making.
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. Under-dilute instead and the drink will taste harsh — this is a target, not a direction.
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 oil does land in the drink, though — an over-expressed peel adds a faint bitterness to the first mouthful.
Taste profile
- Sweetness
- 1/5
- Sourness
- 3/5
- Bitterness
- 2/5
- Strength
- 3/5
- Fruitiness
- 1/5
- Freshness
- 2/5
- Creaminess
- 0/5
- Smokiness
- 0/5
Nutrition & alcohol
Estimate onlyBased on standard equal-parts pours at typical bottle strengths; brands vary in ABV.- Calories
- 180 kcal
- Sugar
- 8 g
- Carbohydrates
- 9 g
- Alcohol units (UK)
- 2.6
- US standard drinks
- 1.44
- ABV
- 25.6%
- Serving size
- 100 ml
Show calculation assumptions
Source: Calculated from standard measures
Calorie breakdown: ~141 kcal from alcohol, ~39 kcal from sugar and mixers.
Likely range: 135–225 kcal, reflecting the confidence level above — not a lab-measured figure.
Assumes 25ml each of gin, triple sec and Lillet Blanc at 40%, 40% and 17% ABV respectively, plus a negligible absinthe rinse.
These figures are estimates, not laboratory measurements — individual tolerance to alcohol varies. See our responsible drinking guidance.
Variations
Corpse Reviver No. 1
A different, brandy-and-vermouth-based drink from the same Savoy Cocktail Book chapter, unrelated in build to No. 2.
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
Gin
Spirit in the largest measure — read as the base.
Modifier
Absinthe
Liqueurs modify: they flavour and usually sweeten at the same time.
Lillet Blanc
Liqueurs modify: they flavour and usually sweeten at the same time.
Sour element
Fresh lemon juice
A short, sharp measure — recorded acidity 5/5, and nothing sharper is poured short, so this is the sour element.
Sweet element
Triple sec
Sweet liqueur (4/5) and nothing else in the drink sweetens — so this is the sweet element, the way triple sec is in a Margarita.
Drinks built this way are collected as the Sour family.
5 components' roles areworked out from the ingredient's category and recorded taste attributes rather than set by hand — the reasoning is shown above so you can disagree with it.
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 · 100ml
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 100ml 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.
Why this drink matters
This one carries one kind of the evidence used to identify influential drinks — each with a test you can check rather than a ranking.
Drinking this with food: seafood, oysters and anything raw
On its recorded taste scores this drink meets the test for seafood, oysters and anything raw — the page explains the principle behind it rather than simply asserting the pairing.
Bar techniques worth the trouble
This one asks for real technique. The advanced path covers the methods behind it and is honest about which are worth the trouble.
Where this fits in a home bar
Gin is bottle 1 in the order that unlocks the most drinks — buying it opens up 10 recipes beyond the ones before it.
Where it comes from
Origin and family
Origin of the Corpse Reviver No. 2
London bartender Harry Craddock's recipe, published in The Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930.
Family
Sour2 parts spirit · 1 part citrus · 1 part sweetener — shaken, strained, served up or over ice.
The wider history
Every claim on these pages is labelled by how well the evidence supports it — documented, disputed, or folklore.
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Questions people ask
- Is there a Corpse Reviver No. 1?
- Yes — a real, different classic listed under variations above, built on cognac and Calvados rather than gin and absinthe.
- How much absinthe should I actually taste?
- It's meant to be a background note, not a dominant flavour — see "Rescue this drink" above if it's overpowering the rest of the drink.
- No Lillet Blanc — what can I use?
- See the substitution guidance above — dry vermouth is the closest real alternative, though it changes the drink's character noticeably.
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.
Recipe confidence
A well-documented pre-Prohibition-era classic with a consistently published recipe.