Southside

Gin, lime, sugar, and fresh mint — equally claimed by Prohibition-era Chicago and a Long Island club, David Wondrich finding neither origin definitively documented.

The Southside's documented history is genuinely contested, with two credible origin stories placing its creation in different social contexts simultaneously. The first traces it to Prohibition-era Chicago's South Side, where the combination of gin, fresh lime juice, sugar, and fresh mint was widely consumed among the criminal organizations and social networks of that neighborhood — gin being the spirit most reliably available during Prohibition due to the relative simplicity of its illicit production. The second attributes it to the Southside Sportsmen's Club on Long Island, New York, a private country club frequented by wealthy New Yorkers where the combination was reportedly a signature preparation. Cocktail historian David Wondrich has noted that both accounts are plausible and that the historical record does not definitively resolve the question. The drink's structure — gin, lime juice, simple syrup, and fresh mint, shaken and strained — places it in a specific intermediate position between the Gimlet and the Mojito: it shares the Gimlet's gin-and-citrus base and the Mojito's fresh mint component while being drier than a sweetened cocktail but less spirit-forward than a strict Gimlet. The Mojito, though likely older as a preparation in Cuba, entered widespread American consumption later; the Southside's craft cocktail revival from the early 2000s onward positioned it as the more precisely proportioned and historically American counterpart.