Ramos Gin Fizz
We’re in the middle of August and here in California it’s hot and getting hotter. So, I’m all about cool drinks. But better than icy, cool drinks are cool, fizzy drinks. Yup, I’m continuing my obsession of fizzy cocktails which are cocktails made with club soda. So today’s club soda cocktail is the Ramos Gin Fizz.
I first learned about the Ramos Fizz four years ago while I was visiting New Orleans. I watched as a bartender at Tujague’s shook up the cocktail and strained this beautiful, fizzy, foaming drink into an old fashioned glass, and I knew immediately I wanted one. I’ve had several since that night and I love them just as much now as I did then.
While they’re great any time of the year, the Fizz is ideal for summer. It’s the lime and lemon juices that give it that summertime zing; after all lemonade is the summertime drink of choice. The citrus doesn’t just give it that spring and summer feel, though, it actually makes the Ramos a little safer to imbibe. Why? Well, evidently there’s something about the acid in citrus juices that helps kill the salmonella bacteria usually found in eggs. That’s right, a raw egg white is used to make a Ramos Fizz.
Now I know that the raw egg might scare off some people, but it’s really okay as long as you use the right eggs. You want to use the freshest eggs possible when making these drinks. You also want to keep them cold because if the temperature fluctuates, the eggs will go bad and trust me, you definitely don’t want to use bad eggs. Bad eggs equal horrible sickness. If the eggs are cold and fresh, there’s only a 1% chance of getting salmonella from it, even less if you use only the white and even less if you use citrus juices. If that isn’t enough for you though, and you’re still nervous about using raw eggs in your cocktail, you can always use pasteurized eggs. Those are eggs that while raw have been heated enough to kill all the bacteria inside.
I can’t tell you why the raw egg was such a popular choice in certain classic cocktails, other than to say the foam at the top of the glass looks pretty cool and adds a special little something to an otherwise ordinary drink. While it’s true that most cocktails created today don’t use the raw egg as an ingredient, back at the turn of the century it was quite popular; and that’s right around the time this Fizz was created. Okay… it was actually created in 1888, but that’s only 12 years before 1900. Henrico C. Ramos arrived in New Orleans that year and bought the Imperial Cabinet Saloon. He wanted a cocktail that you could only get at his bar, and so, the Ramos Gin Fizz was born. He kept the recipe a secret until Prohibition when the bar closed. Henrico’s brother didn’t want the cocktail to die along with so many other classics that were created before the “dry” era, so he shared the recipe with the world. That’s why you can still walk into Tujague’s, or any other bar in New Orleans or the United States today, order a Ramos Gin Fizz and have the exact same drink that men and women were enjoying over 100 years ago. And if a drink has lasted that long, I’d say it’s definitely worth a taste.
Ramos Gin Fizz
Ingredients:
- 2 oz. gin
- juice of half a lime
- juice of half a lemon
- 3 dashes orange flower water
- 1 egg white
- 2 tablespoons cream
- 1 teaspoon super fine sugar
- club soda
Directions:
- Place all the ingredients except the club soda into a cold cocktail shaker. Give a dry shake (without ice) for at least a minute. Add ice and shake for another minute.
- Strain into an old fashioned glass with ice. Top off with club soda. Add a lime wedge for garnish and serve.
