Drinking history: The Clover Club Cocktail

Pity the poor Clover Club cocktail. Going from a mainstay of any self respecting early 20th century drinking man's repertoire to becoming the Cosmo of it's day. This was a traditional tipple of turn-of-the-(last) century cocktail culture, mentioned in cocktail books going back to 1911, and ordered by a person described thusly 55 years ago in Jack Townsend's The Bartender's Book (thanks to Cocktail Chronicles): "The Clover Club drinker is traditionally a gentleman of the pre-Prohibition school. He may not necessarily be one of the legal, literary, or business figures who were members of the club of that name. He may never have been in the bar of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia where the Clover Club members foregathered and the drink originated. But he belongs with that set." From that to the favored drink of post-WWII Carrie Bradshaw's?! How could such a thing happen?

That's what I set out to find, when in a fit of election news induced thirst (probably after listening to Ms. Civics Lesson, Sarah Palin try to describe what the vice-president does, and failing miserably...again). And being secure enough in my masculinity not to be threatened about being a Gilded Age sissy, I grabbed the requisite tools of cocktail investigation, the most important being a bottle of gin and a cocktail shaker, and delved into the mystery. Some gin was spilled, eggs were cracked, citrus was squeezed, and there was a certain amount of straining done to come to the conclusion that the forgotten, formerly respected then spurned Clover Club Cocktail is one kick ass concoction! The Cosmo of its day? Maybe, but it is a great cocktail for our day! I can't wait to make this for friends. Rich with body from the egg white, with a nice balanced sweet-tart flavor, I dare you not to like this one!
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Clover Club Cocktail
adapted from Jason Wilson/The Washington Post

There are innumerable recipes for the Clover Club available. I liked the sound of this one from Jason Wilson, the Post's spirits columnist. I also read others where raspberry syrup (like Torani or Monin) can be subbed for the grenadine. I also would play around with the citrus ratio. But all in all, this was a pretty damn tasty drink as is! -bb

1 serving

ingredients:
Ice
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 ounces gin
1/2 ounce grenadine (4 dashes)
Juice of 1/2 medium lemon (2 tablespoons)
1 large raw egg white

method:
Fill a tall mixing glass two-thirds with ice. Add the gin, grenadine, lemon juice and raw egg white. Shake vigorously for 30 to 60 seconds to form a good froth. Strain into a martini glass and serve immediately.

As if I needed another temptation....

For me, part of the fun of going out to dinner is the pre-dinner libation, aka "the pre-func", "getting your groove on", or "setting the table". When w and I have our date nights we almost always make one stop for a refreshing adult beverage before our final destination. The place that has become our de facto starting point lately here in PDX is the Teardrop Lounge in northwest. They've come on fast and hard and are among the cutting edge cocktailistas in town, with a menu of creative and deliciously intoxicating beverages that only seriously indulgent minds would come up with. The owner/bartenders are awesome, and Teardrop was recently named Bar of the Year by Portland Monthly Magazine. They almost always nail it with their drinks (although I have to admit that w's "A Bittersweet Life" was a rare miss). It's a warmly inviting, modern/retro boîte (modern in its sleek design; retro in its comfortable to hang at bar and barmen who take their work seriously and appreciate the history of their craft) that we really dig, a place that doesn't reek of the annoying, trying-too-hard vibe usually given off by other places in the "Pearl" district. Before dinner out at Alba last Saturday, I also happened to have one of the best new drinks to wreak havoc on my liver in quite some time (the last really cool, new drink that grabbed me was the Old Pal at Castagna Café), the intriguingly named "Vow of Silence" (right), a perfectly balanced blend of gin, yellow chartreuse, grapefruit, lemon, averna amaro, and gomme syrup. I'm still not sure what those last two ingredients are, but they all come together to form one wildly good drink that will leave your personal vows of silence, sobriety, or whatever else you're swearing off this week in tatters on the floor around your bar stool!

Salut Camilo e Gaspari!

It's the little differences that make all the difference. Of course I can relate this statement to my love and endless and healthy(?) fascination with cocktails. I write this as I sit at home having the national cocktail of Federal Republic of Bruce, an absolutely perfect Negroni. The Negroni, an oh so satisfying drink, traditionally a blend of gin, Campari (invented by Gaspari Campari in the early 1800s), and sweet vermouth in equal amounts, is an old school classic. It is named after Camilo Negroni who lived in early 1900s Florence and always ordered this particular libation.
My particular love affair with Camilo's concoction began years ago, and has never waned, through the highs of enjoying them at a sunny outdoor café table on the Giudecca Canal in Venice (for $2.00!!) to the lows of waking up after perhaps one too many with the unfortunate feeling of an elephant tap dancing on my head.
But I found out how big a little difference can be after a San Francisco afternoon a few years ago spent on a hunt for the perfect Negroni. It was in the bar at Bix, a wonderfully atmospheric place and perhaps my favorite Bay area haunt for martinis and other cocktails , that I learned the secret. I think this was stop number three on the search, and one sip in my eyes went wide and I turned to the bartender and said "You did something different here, didn't you?" I remember his satisfied little smile as he said that he indeed had his own minor variation on the classic one-to-one-to-one proportions. For so simple a recipe, you'd be amazed at how many bartenders screw it up, or riff on this, and completely lose sight of what is a drink that, as an old drinking companion succinctly said, "Made correctly is the perfectly balanced cocktail." So what was that little difference that made the perfect cocktail into something that was touched by the hand of God? He keeps the usual proportions of one part gin and one part Campari, but instead of one part sweet vermouth, he used 1/2 sweet and 1/2 dry vermouth. The dry vermouth gives it this slight acid bite that balances out the richness of the Campari and gin.
And if the Negroni is the National Cocktail of this Republic in my mind, then Tanqueray gin is the National Beverage. I say that as a prelude to advise you to use a somewhat more neutral gin...I prefer Gordon's...because the assertive flavor of Tanqueray tends to overpower the other elements. So easy, so good, and so important to my happiness. Mille grazie Camilo!

The Perfect Perfect Negroni
1 part gin, preferably Gordon's
1 part Campari
1/2 part sweet vermouth
1/2 part dry vermouth
Shake with ice, strain into a chilled martini glass, and garnish with a lemon twist.