Pimms: Two Ingredients You MUST Have

As a Londoner, I will undoubtedly discuss Pimms more than once in this blog. I first had the drink a year before I expatriated from America. I was 21 visiting my family in the Midlands around Wimbledon time. My cousin told me it was basically obligatory to drink Pimms in the summertime in England. Not a bad law to enforce, if there was one.

It is delicious and you can dilute it any amount you want, really, depending on your needs. Yet I wouldn’t diverge too much from the classic cocktail, which calls for 1 part Pimms and 3 parts lemonade. Traditionally you add strawberries, cucumbers and fresh mint. Personally, I find it offensive when a pub serves me a glass with lemon slices.

Mint truly has a starring role in Pimms. It gives the drink an added medicinal comfort and Pimms certainly does not taste the same without it.

If I had one bit of advice for Brits during the summer, it would be to grow your own mint or buy it mid-week.

This is because there’s a mad rush for it on the weekend when the weather brightens up…because oh yeah, there is one other ingredient that Pimms requires, and it’s sometimes quite rare to find in these British Isles: sunshine.