Clover Club Cocktail – A Delicious Raspberry Gin Sour

Clover Club Cocktail


The Clover Club Cocktail Recipe: History, Ingredients, and How to Make it:

Clover Club Cocktail
Clover CLub Cocktail

The Clover Club cocktail is a classic gin based raspberry sour. It is a light and refreshing classic cocktail. It also looks great served in a coupe glass with a frothy white foam on top.

This cocktail has been around for at least a century. It achieved peak popularity during the Prohibition years before it nearly disappeared altogether. The drink comes, unsurprisingly, from the Clover Club in Philadelphia, but there don’t seem to be a lot of specifics around its origin.

Ingredients

The clover club is a gin based sour cocktail that lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white.

Gin

I’d choose a gin with more woody spice flavours to provide a counterpoint to the citrus. Bombay Sapphire is an easy choice. If you’re looking for something more modern you could try using Ungava.

Lemon Juice

The sour component here is a balance of lemon juice and raspberry syrup. Fresh raspberry syrup is delicious and you can find a million uses for it. In other cocktails, sorbets and desserts…

Raspberry Syrup

Raspberry is the distinguishing flavor in this drink. Raspberry syrup also happens to be delicious and easy to make. It is also super versatile and you can use it in many other drinks.

One of the easiest things to do is to fill a freezer bag with raspberries and sugar. Put the bag in the fridge and let it macerate overnight. The sugar will draw all the juice out of the berries. Then all you have to do it add water.

If you don’t want to wait overnight you have another option. You can do it on the stovetop if you’re in a hurry. Simply add raspberries to your sugar and water and cook it all down. 

Egg Whites

Finally, there is that all important egg-white foam on top. Done well it is a beautiful blank canvas for a garnish. This is a drink that can benefit form a reverse shake to get a good solid foam.

If the thought of using raw egg whites in your cocktail makes you uncomfortable you can always use vegan cocktail foamer. Vegan foamer is a great way to get that foamy head without using eggs.

How to Make the Clover Club Cocktail

The Clover Club cocktail is a sour. It is also made with egg white foam. That means two things. First, it is a shaken drink. You’ll need to get out your cocktail shaker. Second, you may want to consider doing a dry shake.

What is a Dry Shake?

When want a thick layer of foam on top of your drink a dry shake makes a world of difference. Think about that layer of foam as if it was a meringue. You are using protein in the egg white to hold the air bubbles together.

There are a lot of factors involved in making a stable foam. The main goal, however, is to make a lot of bubbles. In other words you want to get as much air integrated with the egg white as you can.

When you shake egg whites with ice the ice breaks down the protein bonds at the same time you are making them. That means your foam comes out soft and flabby. So, a dry shake means you are simply shaking the cocktail without ice.

 

Clover Club Cocktail

  • 2 ounces London dry gin
  • 3/4 ounce raspberry syrup
  • 3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
  • 1 egg white
  • 4 fresh raspberries
  1. Add egg white, gin, raspberry syrup and lemon juice to an empty shaker.
  2. Dry shake the ingredients for 10 – 20 seconds to emulsify and froth the egg white.
  3. Add ice to the shaker and shake vigorously for another 10 – 20 seconds to chill and dilute.
  4. Strain cocktail into a chilled shaker glass.
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