Anyone who follows current cocktail trends has noticed that there’s been a blast to the past concerning the use of egg whites. Egg whites can add a delicate silky mouth feel to your cocktail and an exquisite foam that you cannot create by any other method.
Egg whites were abundantly used in cocktails around the turn of the century, but bad press concerning salmonella scared consumers away from using raw eggs. The unfortunate current reality is what doesn’t have salmonella in your local grocery? The bagged lettuce is tainted, the tomatoes are tainted, and now the pistachios are tainted. Upon further research, it appears that eggs might just be one of the safest provisions in the grocery store aisle.
Quite honestly salmonella is very rare in eggs, on average in the U.S. only one out of every 20,000 eggs might contain the bacteria. So if you consume a customary 256 eggs per year, you will on average encounter a tainted egg every 84 years. Furthermore, the FDA agrees that salmonella typically is in the yolk, which pretty much zilches your chances of getting salmonella to nothing.
So now that you aren’t afraid to crack a little egg in your cocktail, what’s next? Any cocktail with egg white needs a little citrus juice, typically lime or lemon to stabilize the egg whites. The whites are the protein of the egg and when you shake them really hard the proteins spring apart (which is what creates that delicious foam), but the proteins want to regroup. The acid in the lime juice inhibits the proteins from rejoining and thus keeps those tight delicious little bubbles lingering for a little bit longer.
One of my favorite classic cocktails that use egg white is the Raymos Fizz. In 1888 Henry C. Ramos came to New Orleans from Baton Rouge and purchased the Imperial Cabinet. He created a special gin fizz for his new bar that people said tasted just like a flower. No one knows Raymos’ exact recipe but it is believed that he added vanilla extract and that’s what made his gin fizz so special. And special indeed, before prohibition his bar would be so busy at Mardi Gras that he would employee 35 “shaker boys” that would just shake all day and night long keep up with the demand.
This is a tasty cocktail for a delightful brunch or something refreshing on a nice sunny spring day.
Raymos Fizz
1 oz simple syrup
1 oz fresh squeezed orange juice
1 oz fresh squeezed lime juice
the white from one egg
1 oz heavy whipping cream
2 oz London dry gin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (if you so desire)
Shake vigorously with a lot of ice for at least 60 seconds until you get a very frothy thick consistency. Pour into a tall collins glass with ice and top with 1 ounce of soda water. Garnish with a fresh orange wedge.