Pimm's Weather?
Fruit Cups, and when (not) to drink them.
There is something inherently summery about Pimm’s. It is also very stereotypically British. So, what better drink for the Early May Bank Holiday. The forecast is for rain, yet we will all optimistically hope that it is miraculously sunny, or at least dry enough for those poorly planned bbqs.
This summery reputation is partly down to some very effective marketing. Yet, marketing alone cannot make a drink work quite so well. It is the balance between refreshing lightness, an easily approachable sweetness, and a depth of herbal flavour that makes Pimm’s, and other fruit cups, work so well when the sun is out.
Of course, you can drink Pimm’s inside looking out at a tiny city garden, but really it needs to be drunk on, or next to, grass. Ideally this would be the lawn of some Palladian mansion, or a meadow next to a gently flowing river edged with willows, but a park works perfectly fine.
Indeed, the best Pimm’s I can remember drinking was on a small patch of (fake) grass outside Bath station. It of course helped that it was free. Oh, and that I had just spent two weeks staying at a boarding school in Wells reading Latin, so hadn’t drunk any thing more exciting than tea for that time.
Pimm’s were doing a promotion so you could sit on some deckchairs, on a patch of astroturf and drink free Pimm’s from flimsy branded plastic glasses. I had a few hours to kill before my train, and so was enjoying the perfect August weather. To go with my (underage) drinking, I had ignored the normal meal deal, and instead bought a punnet of strawberries for lunch. Normally such strawberries are a mixed bag, with a few ripe ones in amongst the slightly bland underripe majority.
Yet, that day each strawberry was just perfect, or so it seemed. For really the Pimm’s was a bit weak, and the strawberries were verging on being over. But it did not matter. Pimm’s is one of those drinks, that works because of its environment. Not just the physical surroundings, but the weather, the company, the mood, all add to creating the right circumstances for Pimm’s to thrive.
With great marketing, Pimm’s has taken over as the perfect drink for such occasions. Yet as a fruit cup, any other fruit cup would work well. A drink of such complexity that can be mixed with cheap lemonade and work well, is always going to be popular in summer. Throw in a bit of fruit and fresh herbs, with compliment the reddish orange of the drink, and it is aesthetically pleasing, and you can pretend it is vaguely healthy. What else do you need for summer drinks.
Note that as Pimm’s the market leader, and I think the best, I will use it rather generically. It helps that it is shorter to type than “fruit cup” and everyone knows what it is.
You can make your own fruit cup without too much hassle. It is at its simplest, a sweetened gin infused with various herbs and fruit, with a hefty dash of aromatised wine (such as sweet vermouth). However, unless you are going for a specific flavour profile, it is not worth it. I suppose it is rather like puff pastry, in that it is worth knowing how to make it, but very rarely worth actually making when very decent premade versions exist and save you so much time.
As with most drinks designed for diluting, never trust the bottle for what ratio to follow as it is always designed to appease the most insipid of tastes. I tend follow about 1:3 ratio, erring on the side of more Pimm’s. Remember you can always dilute it, so be sparing with the lemonade.
I also find that Pimm’s is best mixed with a blend of lemonade. The bulk has to be classic stuff like Schweppe’s, but this can be a tad sweet on its own. For the sake of ease, I tend to mix in some sharper lemonade like San Pellegrino’s Limonata, but you could just add a generous hit of lemon juice and stick to simple lemonade.
If you want to branch out you can try all sorts of mixers, from ginger beer to cider. Many of these work but rather alter the drink into something that is no longer Pimm’s, and often need the sweetness adjusting.
As the name Fruit Cup suggests, the fruit is vital. Although any decent fruit cup with have a fair hit of flavour already infused, this tends to be the baser notes, as the heady vegetal freshness tends not to last. So, it is almost impossible to mix up a good Pimm’s (or other fruit cup) without plenty of fresh fruit and herbs.
This does not mean your glass should resemble a fruit salad. The purpose of the fruit is to add flavour, not texture, so should remain in the jug it is being mixed in. What fruit and herbs are used is up to you. As long as there is some vibrant fresh herb like Mint or Borage, a citrus fruit, a summerish berry, and something else green like cucumber, it will work.
I like to use plenty of mint, lemon, orange, cucumber, and strawberries, and find that mixing it the night before I want to drink it always helps to bring out the umph of the fruit and herbs. To really up the extraction of flavour, it is best to let these things seep in just the Pimm’s (with maybe an added tot of gin) so the higher alcohol concentration will help the maceration.
With all that said, and as you can see from the picture above, the herbs and fruit are very flexible. I used a sprig of rosemary as I have a large bush and no other herbs to hand. I also didn’t have any soft fruit so have stuck with just lemon (tho was eyeing up a pineapple that would likely work well).
You could be rather elegant and serve it from a nice jug into delicate little tumblers, so that as you sip it slowly it can be replenished, perfectly chilled from the ice containing jug. Or you can do it properly in a pint glass making sure to drink it before it gets too warm. After all well-made Pimm’s is only about 9% abv., so not far off some heavily hopped beers that you might otherwise be quaffing in the sun.
What is more vital than the actual glass, is that it is served cold and without too much fruit in the glass. The odd garnish is fine, but it should not look like you have tipped half a fruit bowl in there.
Even I cannot link Pimm’s to the Romans other than through when and where I drank some, but that doesn’t mean I will ignore its history. It is a rather nebulous history, but fruit cups appear to be a Victorian invention, or at least grew popular then. At their simplest they were punch like drinks based around fruit, liqueurs, spices, and gin. These would have been made to proprietorial recipes at home, and then spread to bars. After a time Pimm’s version grew to such popularity that it started to be sold to drink at home.
The in-depth history of when Pimm’s No.1 Cup was first made is contested and not worth going into. What is worth noting is that the classic Pimm’s No.1 Cup, formed part of a range, each of which used a different spirit. The precise range changed, with some being added over time.
When the company was bought up by Diageo, all but No.1 (gin) and No.6 (vodka) were discontinued for lack of sales. However, you do occasionally see seasonal variants of Pimm’s such as their Winter Cup, which is based on brandy rather like the old No.3 cup.
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