The Southside is a cocktail with competing origin stories, which usually means it’s old enough that nobody can agree on the truth anymore. Some say it started at the 21 Club in New York. Others give the credit to a Southside gangster in Chicago during Prohibition who needed something to mask the taste of rough bathtub gin. Al Capone’s name gets dropped occasionally, which may or may not be apocryphal. The drink is good enough that everyone wants credit for it.
What it is, stripped down, is a gin sour with mint — bright, herbal, refreshing, and one of the better warm-weather cocktails in the classic canon. The version here uses Knob Creek bourbon in place of gin, which makes it the unofficial bourbon cousin of the Southside. It’s a little warmer and less botanical than the original, but the mint and lemon still do exactly what they’re supposed to do.
If you’ve been making Whiskey Smashes all spring, this is the next logical step — a more refined, up-served version of that same mint-and-lemon flavor profile. Coupe glass, no ice in the drink, a mint sprig tucked alongside. It cleans up well.
Knob Creek and the Southside
Knob Creek Small Batch is a 100 proof Kentucky straight bourbon from Jim Beam’s small batch collection, aged nine years and bottled without chill filtration. The higher proof and longer aging give it a richness and depth — caramel, vanilla, dried fruit, a little leather — that holds up well against the lemon and mint rather than getting lost behind them.
In a drink where you’re asking bourbon to do what gin normally does, you want something with enough presence and complexity to justify its place in the glass. Knob Creek earns it.
Knob Creek Single Barrel at 120 proof is the step up — more intensity, more oak, a more assertive finished drink. Buffalo Trace is the approachable budget alternative that makes a lovely, lighter version of the same cocktail.
Mint in an Up-Served Drink
The Southside shakes the mint rather than muddling it, which is a different approach from the Whiskey Smash or the Mint Julep. A few mint leaves go into the shaker with everything else, get shaken hard, and then get strained out when you double strain into the coupe.
The effect is a clean, mint-infused drink where the flavor is present and aromatic without any leaf fragments or rough texture. More elegant than a muddled mint cocktail, though it sacrifices some of the brightness of fresh-muddled mint in exchange for that cleanliness. Both approaches are correct. This one fits a coupe better.
