Gibson (cocktail) Gibson (cocktail) The Gibson is a mixed drink made with gin and dry vermouth, and often garnished with a pickled onion. The oldest published recipe for the Gibson is found in the 1908 book, "The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them" by William Boothby. Other pre-prohibition recipes for the Gibson exist. They all omit bitters and none of them garnish with an onion. Some garnish with citrus twists. Others use no garniture at all. There is no known recipe for the Gibson garnishes with an onion before William Boothby's 1908 Gibson Recipe. Some sources persist in using other garnishment
Gibson (cocktail) column, as well as in his book "The Good Man's Weakness". A.P. Gibson remembered that when he was a boy, his great-uncle, prominent San Francisco businessman Walter D. K. Gibson (1864–1938), was said to have created it at the Bohemian Club in the 1890s. Charles Clegg, when asked about it by Herb Caen, also said it was from San Francisco. Eric Felton, writing in the "Wall Street Journal", May 30, 2009 "A Thoroughly Western Cocktail" considers this version correct; he cites Ward Thompson, a Bohemian Club member whose mention of it in 1898 is the first recorded in print. Although