While real men may not eat quiche, they certainly do drink the Clover Club cocktail. (Really only the later part of that sentence is true… real men eat anything they damn well please.) This drink, like the Old Fashioned is shrouded in pre-Prohibition era lore, hearkening back to a men’s-only club of its namesake that appears to have met in Philadelphia beginning in 1882. It consists of gin, raspberry syrup, lemon juice, and egg whites which serve as an emulsifier and gives the drink its frothy nature.
History
In 1901, the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel was established in Philadelphia’s city center and the men’s-only Clover Club ostensibly relocated there where they remained into the 1920s. This hotel was important for two reasons. First, it charged the highest prices and provided only the very best for the robber-barons who made their fortunes in the post-Civil-War era. Second, its owner was George Boldt who, after building the Stratford hotel, later became president of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel Company in New York. The association of the Clover Club cocktail with the very finest was likely thus transitioned to New York where it gained in popularity.
He Said/She Said
Lost to time is the decline of the cocktail as a man’s drink. When did it become viewed as more of a lady’s drink? One thing is for certain, it happened well before the recipe transitioned into a “Pink Lady” in which the raspberries were substituted for grenadine.
Most recipes for the Clover Club cocktail call for London dry gin which is made by mixing gin with as many as nine different botanicals. As for the taste of the London dry gin itself, some will simply find an earthy note while others will relish the complex flavors of this gin. Those flavors are preserved in the final drink which sits right at home with the lemon and raspberry juices. For simplicity, the recipe calls only for muddling the raspberries and adding simple syrup. (Other recipes present a home-made approach to cooking down the raspberries to make a syrup but we’re more concerned with the enjoyment of the cocktail and not so much its preparation.) Heads up: you’ll need a shaker for this one.
Ingredients:
2 oz. Beefeater’s Dry London Gin
4-5 raspberries
½ oz. of fresh-squeezed lemon juice
½ oz. of simple syrup
1 egg white
Add the raspberries to the shaker and muddle them (crushing to release the juice). Add the rest of the ingredients and several cubes of ice. Shake well. The point of shaking is to chill the cocktail and also to froth-up the egg white. Pour into a martini glass and garnish with a raspberry or two.
John
