The Spirits #13: The Ramos Gin Fizz

~ Feliz Navidad ~ Feliz Navidad ~ Feliz Navidad ~ Prospero año ~ Felicidad ~

~ THE RAMOS GIN FIZZ ~
(Serves 2)

One egg white (around 40ml)
40ml golden sugar syrup (see here)
100ml gin
50ml single cream
A few drops orange blossom water
A few drop vanilla extract
25ml lemon juice
25ml lime juice
Fizzy water

A bit more involved this one. As if you didn’t have enough to do!
First, place two glasses in the freezer.
Then, separate the egg white from the yolk.
(You might want to pre-measure the other ingredeints for ease at this point).
Now place the white in a decent-sized mixing bowl along with the sugar syrup.
Whisk using an electric mix (or by hand but it will take a while) until the mixture becomes glossy and foamy. This should take about a minute.
Introduce the other ingredients in the order above, leaving the citrus until last.
Once it is all combined, add to a shaker with plenty of ice and shake HARD.
Fine-strain into your frozen glasses and top up with fizzy water, if you like.
Garnish with an orange zest twist… or go without.

Some Ramos Gin Fizz pointers:

1) In pretty much every other recipe, you are simply advised to shake everything together vigorously. I have tried doing it this way. It has NEVER EVER WORKED. It simply results in a curdled mess. (Quite a tasty curdled mess, but a mess all the same). This may be due to the cream I’m using (Lacto-Free Single Cream… perhaps basic double ceam is more obliging?) But anyhow: while the whisking method is a faff, I find it to be FOOL PROOF. The texture is wonderful, like an evaporated angel.

2) The Ramos Gin Fizz has an extremely particular taste that was once a closely guarded secret. Not many cocktails contain lemon and lime - this alone suggests that its creator, fin de siecle New Orleans barkeep Henry C. Ramos was an exacting man. The orange blossom water and the vanilla tilt it towards the ethereal. But the real secret I think is that combination of citrus and cream, spiked with juniper.

3) Extremely worth trying this method-formula with other flavours etc. For example, here is a Pink Panther, which I invented earlier this summer, sort of a grenadine Ramos with rose water and a couple of raspberries. Why not?

4) I used the yolk to make THIS! Oh my it was good.

5) I am forgoing the long-essay today as - well, I’m hoping to fast-forward the moment when we’re drinking Ramos Gin Fizzes, wrapping presents, etc. But: think of the Ramos as a treat to yourself, a thank you, a just-dessert, a because I’m worth it sort of cocktail. It is also one I am attempting to enshrine as a Christmas tradition, a sort of drinking person’s Snowball. Isn’t that what Christmas is, an attempt to escape from certain traditions and to create ones of your own?

Anyway I hope you all have as lovely a time as you possibly can in these weird circumstances! Stay safe and I can’t wait until we can all get together.

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PLAYLIST

IT’S CHRISTMASSSSSS!

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SHOPPING LIST

This one is for New Year’s Eve. So! Champagne (or, let’s be realistic, prosecco/cava/crémant… even the fancy bars don’t use champagne in their champagne cocktails). Then: lime juice, sugar syrup, mint leaves, dark rum and Angostura bitters.