So I know that we here at Sexiquette generally like our drinks manly and our lingerie femme-y (Ms. Garters’s delightful old-boy’s club/Catholic schoolboy fashion fetish notwithstanding.) We relish the tension, the dissonance therein – it makes us more complicated, more formidable, in our best-of-both-genders way.
To that end, we have a post on turning the Manhattan into something both you and your pride can swallow.
But I want to just come out and say that I don’t like whiskey as much as my compatriots. I enjoy it, certainly, but gin (the alcohol of choice for both Roger Sterling and Betty Draper) is to me the ultimate, the classic, the truly all-embracing base.
So I feel obliged to comfort you in your desire for something that may in fact not put hair on your chest. It’s okay. Here, have a milkshake. I know it’s hard. TAKE IT.
Now, wasn’t that the most AMAZING FUCKING MILKSHAKE YOU’VE EVER HAD? And do you still feel ashamed? I didn’t think so. Here’s what’s in it.
- 1 1/2 ounces gin (London Dry, according to the old coot demonstrating below)
- 1/2 ounce lemon juice
- 1/2 ounce lime juice
- 1 ounce simple syrup
- 3-4 drops orange flower water
- 2 drops vanilla extract (allegedly a controversial ingredient, but yummy nonetheless. Apparently, some people also use my absolute most favorite of spices, cardamom, which makes my heart go yay! And my liver cringe in fear.)
- 2 ounces cream
- 1 egg white
- soda water
For the proper way to make it, check out this too-legit-to-quit bartender from the drink’s city of origin – none other than original cocktail capital, New Orleans.
Would this guy steer you wrong? Would he give you a drink he didn’t feel good about? Don’t you feel like a bit of a manly sadist making this sweet old man shake your drink for TWELVE minutes? He can barely finish the history, he’s so out of breath. You big ole meanie.
So yes, there are in fact some points in the Ramos Gin Fizz’s manly cocktail favor. One is definitely the fact that it’s so labor-intensive to make. Also, it is like originary-dandy Sazerac’s hot Southern-belle sister – wicked old and from New Orleans. And it has an egg white, which is awesome like normal. (You could serve it in a tumbler, which I’m told is definitively more manly, but I much prefer the Collins glass myself. Need I point out that the latter will hold and thus convey more of this elixir to your eager mouth?)
My last and final bit of totally thrilling information about this drink is that while most people consider it a brunch beverage, folks of yore in New Orleans drank it all the goddamn time. So feel free to ride this glorious zephyr of bliss all night and into the next afternoon.
Tags: classic cocktail, Cocktail, cream, egg white, fizz, gender ambiguity, gin, Ramos Gin Fizz
