Are you watching Boardwalk Empire, Martin Scorsese’s new HBO miniseries? The show is set in Atlantic City, in the early days of prohibition. Steve Buscemi plays Enoch "Nucky" Thompson, the city treasurer/gangster/bootlegger who lives in the Ritz and keeps, as a sweetheart, the most irritating dumdum gangster girlfriend we’ve seen in a long time. She’s played with languid brilliance by Paz de la Huerta, crazy subject of one of the craziest magazine profiles I’ve ever read.

Where was I? Oh yes, Boardwalk Empire. So in these early dry days, everyone is still drinking. But we see the first signs of scarcity during Nucky’s extravagant birthday party in episode four ("Anastasia") when a state senator orders a Pimm’s Cup. The house is out of Pimm’s, Nucky’s German butler tells the senator. The senator laughs, and then he uses the lack of Pimm’s as an example to Nucky. Nucky has been insisting the senator help improve the roads to A.C. so that he can bootleg booze more efficiently; the senator believes he wants too much, too soon. You see, he tells Nucky, "You can’t expect to have everything." Steve Buscemi then does something with his face that makes us understand that Nucky is very unhappy and that this won’t end well.

At the end of the episode, a delivery man wheels a case of Pimm’s into the senator’s office. Along with the booze, Nucky has sent him a note. "I do expect to have everything," it says. "Do" is underlined.

We live in easier times. Pimm’s Cup #1—a concoction of gin, fruit juice, and spices—can be procured at state liquor stores for just over 20 bucks.

Here’s how you make the cocktail: Take a highball glass and fill it with ice, then add two ounces of Pimm’s Cup #1 and about a quarter ounce of fresh-squeezed lemon juice. Top with ginger ale and garnish with a slice of cucumber and another of lemon and a few mint springs, if you like. Easy.

Oh and a Pimm’s Cup also happens to be the only cocktail you can order at White Horse Trading Co in Pike Place Market. It’s a cozy concoction indeed on a wet winter’s evening.