Depth Charge

Dry gin, Kina Lillet, and absinthe — Craddock's 1930 Savoy Book, absinthe available in London after US and European bans, the WWI depth charge giving it the name.

The Depth Charge appears in Harry Craddock's 1930 Savoy Cocktail Book, the foundational reference work compiled by the American Bar's head bartender at London's Savoy Hotel. Craddock had left the United States during Prohibition, eventually arriving at the Savoy in 1920 where he served for more than a decade and compiled what became one of the most quoted and reprinted cocktail books of the 20th century. The drink brings together dry gin with Kina Lillet — the aromatized wine from Bordeaux that was then more robustly bitter with quinine than the present-day reformulated Lillet Blanc — and a measured whisper of absinthe as an accent. This three-component structure, with absinthe functioning as an aromatic seasoning rather than a primary ingredient, was entirely typical of the sophisticated pre-Prohibition American bar tradition that Craddock carried with him from New York. Absinthe had been banned in the United States and across most of continental Europe by the early 1910s, which made its continuing appearance in London cocktail guides both nostalgic and practically possible in ways it was not elsewhere. The name evokes the anti-submarine weapon introduced during World War I — a canister of explosives deployed beneath the ocean's surface to detonate at depth. The drink is elegant and restrained on the surface with its cold, clear presentation, but the absinthe delivers a disorienting aromatic punch that explains the naval metaphor exactly.