This month’s Mixology Monday sees me without ready access to a bar to mix a drink.  On well, I’m going to go ahead and post something anyway.  The theme this month is New Orleans cocktails, so I thought I could post a couple of tips related to making drinks containing egg white, with particular reference to that venerable old New Orleans drink – the Ramos Gin Fizz.

I had made it something of a mission to get a decent Ramos Gin Fizz while in New Orleans for Tales of the Cocktail.  What I really wanted was a Ramos Gin Fizz made by Chris McMillan (check out a video of him mixing one here).  Before leaving for New Orleans I rang the bar he now works at (in the Renaissance Pere Marquette Hotel) and was told by that the great man would be behind the bar on the Friday and Saturday during Tales of the Cocktail from 4pm onwards.  I dropped past the hotel late on Friday afternoon.  The bar was deserted.  There was no queue out onto the street for Ramos Gin Fizzes.  The lobby was not filled with a couple of dozen drinks bloggers, passing a shaker or two around as they shook a couple of fizzes up.  I had lucked out!  Then I got a little closer and realized Chris McMillan was nowhere to be seen.  On asking if he was around I found he was not going to be back at work until the 25th.  Alas it was not to be.

Although the Chris McMillan Ramos Gin Fizz never happened, after the session on New Orleans Drinks I got the chance to ask Chris where I would get a Ramos Gin Fizz in New Orleans given that he wasn’t working his own bar that week.  He told me not to even try at his own bar unless he was there – which made me feel better about slinking out on the poor young guy tending bar there.  Chris suggested The Swizzle Stick Bar at Cafe Adelaide.  I graciously thanked Mr. McMillan before thrusting him out of my way and rushing to Cafe Adelaide.

Once again, it was not to be.  On a better day Chris McMillan’s suggestion may have been a good one.  I should have done well given that I believe my drink was mixed up by Lu Brow – the ‘bar chef’ at Cafe Adelaide.  Unfortunately I have little  good to say about the Ramos Gin Fizz I drank at Cafe Adelaide.  OK, I guess the ingredients and proportions were about right.  Unfortunately the execution was abysmal.  I shake a Daiquiri longer than Lu Brow shook this Ramos Gin Fizz.  I wasn’t expecting the bar to lower its shutters for quarter of an hour while everybody in the room took turns shaking my drink.  Indeed I was half expecting to be tossed out into the street for daring to ask for a Ramos Gin Fizz.  However, given that the place was as near empty as I saw it during Tales of the Cocktail, a shake lasting longer than 15 seconds would have been nice.  The drink tasted OK, but it was rather diluted (the crushed ice they seem to favor for all drinks in The Swizzle Stick Bar is not always the way to go), and texturally it was way off.  That said, at least I was able to go into a bar and order a Ramos Gin Fizz without throwing the barstaff into a fit of confusion.  You couldn’t do that in most places.

The Swizzle Stick Bar Ramos Gin Fizz was a sorry contrast to the exceptionally frothy Pisco Sour I enjoyed in The Alembic in San Francisco.  The Alembic pisco sour was probably the stand out drink from my U.S. trip.  The difference between the two drinks was the level of care taken with the execution.

So where am I going with all this?

I thought for this Mixology Monday I would throw a couple of Ramos Gin Fizz making tips out there.  I have not tried the third of these myself, since it is something I learned from a bartender/blogger while attending Tales.  I’ve now forgotten who told me this, so give a shout if you happen to be reading.  I haven’t tried the fourth either, but professional bartenders seem to like it.

Tip number 1 – Dry shake the mixture before adding any ice.  This shouldn’t need to be said, but many people skip this essential step.

Tip number 2 -Add the coil from your Hawthorne Strainer to the shaker while dry shaking (removing it when you add the ice).  The coil will act like a whisk and aerate the egg faster than if you shook without the coil in there.  So far as I know this technique is not traditional.  I have never seen it in a recipe.  However, my experiments have found it to work well.  The pisco sour at The Alembic was made this way.  The Alembic was the first bar where I have seen a dry shake done this way.  Congratulations to the Alembic for taking that extra little bit of trouble.

Tip number 3 – Add the sugar after your dry shake.  The theory behind this is that sugar acts as a stabilizer for existing foam, but actually inhibits foam formation.  I have not experimented with this yet.  However, I was surprised a few weeks back when a batch of pisco sours I made up turned out to have an exceptionally good foam.  Being a batch drink I got a little confused with the proportions and undersweetened to begin with, adjusting the sweetness later.  Perhaps the batch of drinks turned out well because I added about half of the sugar at the end.  While a Ramos Gin Fizz is not a Pisco Sour, I think you want both drinks to be as foamy as possible.  Therefore I suggest trying this technique.

Tip number 4 – You could always cheat and use one of those little battery operated blending sticks, which are small enough to fit into a cocktail shaker.  These seem popular in bars.  The Barsol Pisco brand rep thought they did a good job, as did numerous other people I spoke with.  I don’t have one but will pick one up at some stage.

The Ramos Gin Fizz recipe I use these days is below.  Some recipes leave out the lime, but I think the mix of lemon and lime is essential to the flavor.  I also like the vanilla essence, even if it may not be traditional.

2 oz gin

1/2 oz of lime juice

1/2  oz of lemon juice

1 egg white

2 oz cream

several drops of orange flower water (more if using the weak tasting middle eastern stuff)

a drop or two of vanilla essence

1 tsp sugar (add this after the dry shake)

A spash of soda water

Dry shake everything except the sugar and soda for at least a minute.  Add the sugar and give it another long shake over ice to chill and dilute a little. Strain into a fizz glass (or an undersized Collins glass) and top with soda, stirring as you do so to build a frothy head that rises above the glass and begins to run down the sides.  Watch the video above to see what I mean.  In fact why am I even bothering with a recipe here?  Just watch the video.

I did not attend the session on eggs in drinks at Tales of the Cocktail.  Does anyone who attended have more tips on getting better results out of drinks containing egg white?

It is certainly relatively common in Barbados, being drunk in classic local drink the Corn’n’Oil (rum, falernum, Angostura Bitters, and a squeeze of lime). The Corn’n’Oil shows how versatile and easy to use Falernum is. You can simply splash it into rum to enhance the rum, or it can contribute to some more elaborate concoction like the Don the Beachcomber Mai Tai. It is sort of like a mildly alcoholic tropical version of sweet-and-sour mix.

So far I have relied on making falernum myself. Although I have tasted the Fees Brothers’ product, I do not rate it highly. The formula seems far too close to standard sweet-and-sour mix to be interesting.

I have tried two different falernum recipes. As with Pimento Dram, I found different recipes yielded very different results. Happily, my second attempt once again proved better than my first.

My first attempt was made as follows:

In 1/2 cup of white rum (Bacardi) soak the following for 48 hours: 6 cloves, 3 cm vanilla bean, zest of 2 limes, and 3 thin slices fresh ginger, and 2 drops almond extract (I was using a highly concentrated almond extract, possibly of dubious quality, hence the very small quantity).

Create a simple syrup from 2 cups white sugar and 2 cups water. Strain the rum mixture and add to syrup. Bottle and use.

This recipe made a tasty lightly spiced syrup. The flavor was not particularly concentrated so there was a temptation to use a lot and thus end up with a very sweet drink. Stored at room temperature the flavor of the syrup began to deteriorate quite rapidly. The low concentration of sugar in the 1:1 simple syrup would not have helped the shelf life of this falernum.

My second attempt used a different recipe, as follows:

Take 4 oz overproof white rum (Sangster’s Conquering Lion, 64%) and infuse it for three days with the following: 20 cloves, 2 tablespoons chopped almonds (approx 25 gms) lightly toasted in a frying pan. Add the zest of 4-5 limes (depending on size) and ¾ oz fresh ginger and infuse for a further day. Adding the limes and ginger only on the last day of the infusion stops the mixture from turning slimy and avoids over-extraction of these flavors.

Strain the above mixture through a moistened cheesecloth, extracting all liquid. Mix the rum infusion with 7 oz simple syrup (2:1 sugar to water ratio), 2 ¼ oz fresh lime juice (strained), 1/8 tsp high quality almond extract, 1/8 tsp high quality vanilla extract. Bottle and use.

This version turns out beautifully. The lime juice gives it an amazing freshness, and also eliminates the need for a squeeze of lime when making a Corn’n’Oil. Of course the lime juice also means you will need to store this syrup in the fridge or freezer. However, since the juice free recipe did not last well at room temperature, refrigerated storage is probably a good idea anyway. This version is like an all purpose rum enhancer, with sourness, sugar, and spices all rolled into one.

If I was to criticize I would say that the almond could be toned down a little. I may try it without one of either the toasted almonds or the almond extract in future. Be very careful not to over-toast the almonds given that they are an assertive taste.

A key point that emerges from comparing the two recipes is probably the importance of overproof spirits when doing infusions. The higher alcohol content extracts flavors better, so make an effort to find and use overproof spirits for infusions, particularly when the infusion is itself to be used to make a liqueur or syrup (dilution of the infusion makes it even more important that it is as intensely flavored as possible to start with). Another point is that when making falernum it makes sense to go heavy on the spices. The first recipe, with only 6 cloves to 500 mls of syrup (infused in standard proof rum), did not really cut it. The second recipe, with 20 cloves to approximately 250 mls of syrup+juice (infused in overpoof rum), was a big improvement flavor-wise. If your falernum somehow ends up too spicy you can always cut it with simple syrup, but if it lacks flavor there is not much you can do besides using huge quantities and producing overly sweetened drinks. Therefore you may as well be generous with the spices.