Sometimes knowing a lot of cocktails can work against you. If you have a small bar and a few tried-and-true drink recipes, it’s easy to figure out what to make when you want a cocktail or when friends come over. But when you have a massive arsenal of bottles and books at your disposal, sometimes it’s difficult to pick a recipe, especially if someone asks you to just “make them something” and doesn’t know enough about cocktails to specify much beyond that. A good bartender (or home bartender) knows what questions to ask to find the perfect drink for a guest. But sometimes the occasion isn’t right for twenty questions and it’s nice to be able to just hand someone a good drink. So I’d argue that a really good home bartender should know a few crowd-pleasers that anybody will like. And the Clover Club is going on my list.
I knew the Clover Club would be good – it’s basically a raspberry gin sour – but I didn’t expect just how much I loved it. I’m not usually a raspberry fiend, but the syrup imparts just enough raspberry flavor for my taste (and also gives the drink its gorgeous color). We planted a little raspberry bush in our backyard a couple of years ago, and it has flourished with very little encouragement, so I was able to pick the raspberries for the syrup and garnish the morning before I used them. The syrup is a bit unique in that it’s not made on the stove – Julie Reiner, founder of the Brooklyn bar named after this classic cocktail, says that this will cook the raspberries and change their flavor. Instead, they are muddled, mixed with sugar, and allowed to macerate for 20-30 minutes. Then you add some water and strain the mixture. It’s a very easy drink to make considering how absolutely beautiful it looks.
History: The Clover Club is a very old cocktail. It is named for a men’s club that met in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. It was exactly what you are probably picturing – a bunch of old, rich white dudes (including William Butler Yeats) sipping drinks in a sumptuous lounge paneled in dark wood. It seems quite incongruous that a lot of them were probably drinking this pink, frothy cocktail. The Clover Club of Philadelphia, a book published in 1897, mentions the drink and that it originated the previous year, in 1896. It enjoyed a lot of popularity in the pre-Prohibition years but, like many other great cocktails, faded into obscurity afterwards, probably because of the egg whites and its girly appearance. By 1934, Esquire was referring to it as a drink for “pansies.” The modern cocktail renaissance renewed interest in this delicious cocktail, and Julie Reiner’s Clover Club bar ensured that the recipe got some extra attention.
Clover Club
1 1/2 oz. gin (Plymouth recommended)
1/2 oz. dry vermouth (Dolin recommended)
1/2 oz. lemon juice
1/2 oz. raspberry syrup*
1/4 oz. egg white**
Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice and shake well, for at least 20 seconds. Strain the drink, dump the ice, and return the cocktail to the shaker to shake again for at least 30 more seconds (this is called a reverse dry shake). Strain into a coupe and garnish with three raspberries on a pick.
*For raspberry syrup, muddle 1/4 cup raspberries in a bowl. Add 1/2 cup sugar and stir or muddle to mix it in well. The mixture should become bright red and juicy. Let it macerate for 20-30 minutes. Then add 1/4 cup water, stir well, and fine strain.
**It can be hard to pour small quantities of egg white – it all tends to goop out at once. I like to separate my egg white into a bowl and lightly whisk it so that it’s easier to measure out 1/4 ounce.
Recipe from Julie Reiner via Imbibe. Historical info from Wikipedia, Punch, Gin Foundry, and The Cocktail Chronicles.