The Campground's Gimlet featuring Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur

Sometimes a great cocktail recommendation comes straight from a customer. Curiada customer Angela T. recently left a glowing review of Zirbenz Stone Pine Liqueur of the Alps, and in it she mentioned The Campground’s Gimlet as a particularly delicious way to use it. Naturally, we had to track down the recipe. That led us to this wonderfully unconventional Gimlet from The Campground, a restaurant and bar in Kansas City’s historic West Bottoms neighborhood, where Zirbenz takes the familiar combination of gin and lime somewhere much more woodsy and unexpected.

The Campground built its cocktail program around a simple philosophy: use a few excellent ingredients and give each one room to show what it can do. This unconventional Gimlet is a particularly good example. Gin, lime, rich simple syrup, and Zirbenz produce something tart, brisk, intensely aromatic, and surprisingly pink.

Zirbenz is what sends the drink in an entirely different direction from the classic Gimlet. Made in Austria from the fruit of the Arolla stone pine, it has the resinous, woodsy aroma you might expect, alongside dry, earthy flavors and a subtle fruitiness. Think fresh pine needles, alpine herbs, forest floor, and a faint berry-like note rather than anything sugary or syrupy. In this drink, those flavors meet sharp lime with an almost mouthwatering intensity.

The original Campground recipe pushes the forest character even further by briefly infusing the gin with Douglas fir spring-tip tea. The gin and Zirbenz reinforce each other's evergreen notes, while the lime keeps everything tart and energetic. A small measure of rich simple syrup rounds off the acidity without obscuring the liqueur.

It’s an unusual Gimlet, which is exactly why Angela’s review sent us down this particular rabbit hole. If you already have a bottle of Zirbenz—or needed an excuse to try one—here’s a very good reason to get acquainted.

Recipe credit: The Campground.