The Lime Rickey cocktail is a drink made originally with bourbon whiskey.

Created in Washington D.C. at Shoemaker’s bar by the bartender George A. Williamson in 1880 and named after Colonel Joseph Rickey, a Democratic lobbyist.

Colonel Joe Rickey a.k.a. Gentlemen Gambler was purported to have invented the Joe Rickey cocktail after the bartender added lime to his “morning’s morning”, a daily dose of Bourbon with little ice and fizzy water.

A few years later, the gin Rickey had supplanted the early bourbon version. This was published in Tim Daly 1903 Daly’s Bartender’s Encyclopedia.

By 1907, Rickey cocktails were such a trend that an article from Los Angeles Herald entitled “Limes are on Time”.