Basic HTML Version
13
City & Village Tours: 0845 812 5000 info@cityandvillagetours.com
James Pimm (below) was the son of a Kent farmer
born at Newnham in 1798. At the age of 25 Pimm
opened an oyster bar opposite Buckingham Palace.
Pimm invented the eponymous gin-based cocktail
flavoured with a secret mixture of herbs and liqueurs
to accompany his shellfish and to aid digestion.
It was served in a small tankard called a Number
One Cup hence Pimm’s Number One Cup.
Pimm sold his restaurant and the rights to Pimm’s
Number One Cup to
businessman, Lord
Mayor of London and
MP for Rochester and
later Chatham Sir
Horatio Davies (right)
who opened another
four Pimm’s Oysters
Bars and began
producing the cocktail
commercially to sell to
other bars. Eventually
there were six Pimm’s
Fruit Cups and the
cocktail sold especially
well abroad to ex pats in the British Empire.
Pimms was a forgotten brand by the1980s but under
the ownership of Diageo the brilliant
It’s Pimms
O’Clock
marketing campaign was launched with actor
Alexander Armstrong playing the classic upper class
Hooray Henry. By mocking its traditional appeal and
target audience Pimms has become a British favourite
for back garden barbeques and, alongside Champagne
it is the staple drink of the Henley Royal Regatta,
Wimbledon, Glyndborne Festival Opera and the Polo
circuit.
Serve in a jug diluted
with lemonade or
ginger ale and fill
the jug with ice,
apple, cucumber,
orange, lemon,
strawberries and
ideally borage leaves
and flowers though
mint will do - for the
back garden anyway!
I say! Awfully Clever British Marketing Old Chap
