The Gin Fizz is one of the oldest cocktails still in circulation, and also one of the most frequently botched. Four ingredients — gin, lemon, sugar, soda — and a surprisingly wide margin for error: one ratio out of place, or ice in the wrong glass at the wrong moment, and an elegant long drink turns into alcoholic lemonade.
Here you'll find the official IBA recipe with the exact measures, the step-by-step method, the drink's history and how it differs from the cocktails it resembles — Gin and Tonic and Tom Collins — which are the source of almost all the confusion.
What a Gin Fizz actually is
The Gin Fizz is a long drink built on gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and soda water, served in a tall, thin tumbler. It's an official IBA (International Bartenders Association) cocktail from The Unforgettables category, landing at roughly 15% ABV in the glass.
It belongs to the fizz family, named for the effervescence of the soda added at the end. The structure is the classic sour — spirit, acid, sweetener — with a bubble on top.
The official IBA recipe
These are the measures codified by the International Bartenders Association, not one of the many versions circulating online:
- 45 ml gin
- 30 ml fresh lemon juice
- 10 ml sugar syrup
- A splash of soda water to top (roughly 60–80 ml)
- Garnish: lemon slice, optional lemon zest
The ratio that matters is 4.5 : 3 : 1 between gin, lemon and sugar. Plenty of recipes push the sugar up to 15 or 20 ml: the drink becomes easier and duller. If your gin has botanicals worth hearing, the official 10 ml let them speak.
How to make a Gin Fizz
- Chill the glass: a tall, thin tumbler, a few minutes in the freezer or filled with ice and water that you tip out before use.
- Into the shaker go gin, lemon juice and sugar syrup. Not the soda: that comes at the very end.
- Fill the shaker with ice and shake hard for 10–12 seconds, until the outside frosts over.
- Strain into the chilled glass.
- Top with soda, pouring it slowly down the side so you don't kill the bubbles.
- Garnish with a lemon slice. Don't stir: the soda does that for you.
The detail almost everyone gets wrong: the ice
Search for "gin fizz" and you'll find dozens of recipes telling you to fill the glass with ice. The official IBA recipe says the opposite: serve without ice.
It isn't a whim. The Gin Fizz is already chilled and diluted in the shaker: that is its intended dilution. Adding ice to the glass means it keeps diluting while you drink it, and within a few minutes the drink loses structure and tastes of water. It's the mistake that turns a Gin Fizz into a badly made Tom Collins.
If you prefer it longer and you're happy with progressive dilution, add the ice by all means — just know you're making a choice, not following the recipe.
The right glass
You want a tall, thin tumbler, between 25 and 35 cl. The narrow vertical shape isn't aesthetic: it's what holds the carbonation of the soda longest, and in this drink the bubble is half the pleasure.
Avoid the copa de balón: the wide mouth loses the bubbles quickly. If you want to understand how glass shape changes what you taste, we've written about it in our guide to glassware.
A little history
The fizz first appears in print in 1876, in the second edition of Jerry Thomas's Bartender's Guide, the first cocktail manual ever published. But it's in New Orleans, between the late 19th and early 20th century, that the drink becomes a phenomenon: bars in the city employed rows of bartenders whose only job was to shake fizzes in shifts through the rush.
The Gin Fizz rose exactly as gin itself rose — a story we tell in full in the history of gin. The drink survived American Prohibition better than most: lemon and sugar did a fine job of covering the dreadful gin of the era.
Gin Fizz or Gin and Tonic: what's the difference
They only look alike. The difference is in the acid and the bitter.
- The Gin and Tonic is built: gin plus tonic water, poured straight into the glass over plenty of ice. The bitterness comes from the quinine in the tonic. No squeezed lemon, no added sugar, nothing shaken.
- The Gin Fizz is shaken: gin, lemon juice and sugar agitated together, then soda. Soda is neutral, not bitter. The acidity comes from fresh lemon.
In practice: the Gin and Tonic is a bitter, aromatic drink, the Gin Fizz is sour and sweet. If it's the first you're after, our step-by-step guide to the gin and tonic covers ratio, ice and garnish.
Gin Fizz or Gin Lemon: a very Italian question
The Gin Lemon isn't a codified cocktail: it's an Italian habit, and it consists simply of gin lengthened with a lemon soft drink (Lemonsoda, Schweppes Lemon and the like), served over ice with a lemon slice.
The concrete differences:
- The Gin Lemon is built in the glass, the Gin Fizz is shaken.
- The Gin Lemon uses a pre-sweetened, pre-flavoured mixer; the Gin Fizz uses fresh lemon, measured sugar and neutral soda.
- As a result the Gin Lemon is sweeter, more industrial in profile, and far simpler to make.
Neither is "wrong": they're two different drinks sharing the idea of gin and citrus. The Gin Fizz, though, puts every variable in your hands, and for that reason it rewards a craft gin far more.
And the Tom Collins?
This is the most common confusion among people who should know better, because the ingredients are the same. Historically there are two differences: the Tom Collins is served over ice in a bigger glass with more soda, making it a longer, more diluted drink; the Gin Fizz is shorter, more concentrated and served without ice. The Collins was originally made with Old Tom Gin, sweeter, hence the name. You'll find the Tom Collins alongside the other great classics in our guide to iconic gin cocktails.
The variations worth knowing
- Silver Fizz: add an egg white and use a dry shake (first without ice, to whip the protein, then with). The result is a dense foam and a velvety texture. Far and away the most requested variation.
- Golden Fizz: same principle, but with the yolk instead of the white. Richer, rarer.
- Royal Fizz: whole egg. Worth trying once, to understand.
- Ramos Gin Fizz: the legendary New Orleans version, with egg white, cream, orange flower water and lime on top of the lemon. It demands an enormously long shake — tradition says twelve minutes — and is an exercise in patience more than a recipe.
- Sloe Gin Fizz: swap the gin for sloe gin, the wild plum liqueur. Sweeter, pink in colour.
How many calories in a Gin Fizz
A Gin Fizz made to IBA spec sits at around 150–170 kcal. The bulk comes from the alcohol (45 ml of gin at 40% is roughly 100 kcal), the rest from the 10 ml of syrup and the natural sugars in the lemon. The soda adds nothing.
That makes it lighter than a Spritz and comparable to a gin and tonic made with full-sugar tonic. To lighten it further, dropping the syrup to 5 ml brings it under 120 kcal — at the cost of a distinctly drier drink.
The mistakes that ruin a Gin Fizz
- Bottled lemon juice. The most audible mistake of all. Freshly squeezed lemon has a live acidity and an aroma that concentrate simply doesn't.
- Shaking the soda. It goes in at the end, in the glass. In the shaker it only builds pressure and goes flat.
- Too much sugar. Above 15 ml the drink flattens out and the gin disappears.
- Too short a shake. Under 10 seconds the drink is neither cold enough nor diluted enough, and the alcohol stays exposed.
- A wide glass. It scatters the bubbles: half the character of the drink is gone in the first two minutes.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Gin Fizz? An IBA long drink of gin, lemon juice, sugar syrup and soda, shaken and served in a tall tumbler.
What's the difference between a Gin and Tonic and a Gin Fizz? The Gin and Tonic is built in the glass with tonic water and is bitter from quinine; the Gin Fizz is shaken with fresh lemon and sugar, and the soda that finishes it is neutral.
What's the difference between a Gin Fizz and a Gin Lemon? The Gin Lemon is gin with a lemon soft drink, built in the glass. The Gin Fizz uses fresh lemon, measured sugar and soda, and it's shaken.
Is a Gin Fizz served with ice? Per the IBA, no: it's already chilled in the shaker. Ice in the glass dilutes it further.
Can I make it without a shaker? Yes, but it suffers. Failing that, use a glass jar with a lid and strain through a fine mesh sieve.
Which gin should I use? One with recognisable botanicals: lemon and sugar bury anonymous gins. Citrus-forward and Mediterranean profiles work particularly well.
The Gin Fizz with GIN NIRO
Fresh lemon and citrus botanicals pull in the same direction: that's why a Mediterranean gin gives this cocktail more depth than a classic London Dry, which tends to stay on the juniper.
GIN NIRO — the Sicilian gin distilled with Zibibbo grapes — brings a note of grape and citrus to a Gin Fizz that stands up even under the lemon. Measures identical to the IBA spec: 45 ml gin, 30 of squeezed lemon, 10 of syrup, soda to top. Discover GIN NIRO, the artisanal Zibibbo gin — 70 cl, with free shipping within Italy — and browse our signature recipes for the house versions.
