29 Jun Royal Clover Club Cocktail Recipe
Royal Clover Club Cocktail Recipe
In our search for a good recipe to feature Glendalough’s new Wild Botanical Gin, we ran across this one. It’s not a subtle enough drink to allow a fine gin to distinguish itself; so we went with the more gin-centric, delicately modified Fairbanks No. 2 instead. On its own terms, though, this is a delicious drink.
We’ve bemoaned before the modern–in our opinion unnecessarily cautious–squeamishness with using egg whites in drinks. It’s a pity, because an egg white foam is so often just the right touch to make a simply solid drink into something special. In earlier times, there was no such balking at raw eggs; it seems instead that they had more of a ‘use the whole egg’ philosophy. We haven’t yet seen a cocktail that tries to use the shells, but more than once recently we’ve stumbled on a recipe that calls for an egg yolk.
We’ve quickly moved from being curious (with perhaps a skeptical lean) to being fans. Whereas an egg white foam lightens a drink, the yolk brings a certain heft to it instead. It does still froth the drink somewhat as well; and that juxtaposition of frothy and solid turns out to be quite agreeable. The egg yolk also gives the drink a luxuriously smooth texture. In both of the egg yolk recipes we’ve tried, this combination of substance, lightness, and silkiness has proven to be a great way to enjoy a strongly lemon flavored cocktail. It’s like a key lime pie in cocktail form.
Today’s eggs are actually quite safe. So, from here on, we for two are going to seek out, rather than avoid, other ways of using them in our drinks.
Ingredients
- 2 oz gin–a mixing gin does just fine here.
- 3/4 oz lemon juice
- 1 T grenadine
- 1 egg yolk
Instructions
- Combine all ingredients in a cocktail shaker.
- Add ice to just above the level of the liquid.
- Shake vigorously for at least 20 seconds.
- Strain into a cocktail glass.
