Episode 51: Clover Club

• 2 ounces gin

• 1/2 ounce lemon juice

• 1/2 ounce raspberry syrup * see note

• 1 large egg white

• Fresh raspberries, for garnish

In a cocktail shaker combine the gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup, & egg white. Shake vigorously (without ice) for 10 seconds. Add ice and shake until frosty cold. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a skewer of 3 fresh raspberries. Serve and enjoy.

*Note: To make raspberry syrup combine 3/4 cup of water and 1 cup of sugar, 1 cup of raspberries (fresh or frozen) and mash the raspberries up into a pulp. Strain out the seeds before using.

According to "The Old Waldorf-Astoria Bar Book," the Clover Club was first created in the late 1800s at the bar of the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia. This popular hangout drew crowds of writers, lawyers, and titans of industry, who would meet and talk over cocktails, and the elegant Clover Club made with gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white was a favorite among them.

The cocktail slowly grew in popularity, eventually becoming a nationwide sensation by the late 1910s and early 1920s. After prohibition though, it basically faded into obscurity, and by the 50s was largely forgotten. This is probably because A) nobody used raspberry syrup anymore and wanted to use grenadine instead, and B) there was another cocktail, the pink lady, that was taking the clover club’s place. A pink lady is essentially a clover club made with a mix of grenadine and applejack instead of the raspberry syrup. It sounds like the applejack adds something interesting to the drink that you would lose if you just used grenadine. According to "Gaz" Regan in "The Joy of Mixology," you have to use real raspberry syrup to make a Clover Club, because "without it, this drink isn't much to talk about."

Thankfully this delicious cocktail is popular again today, thanks largely to its inclusion in Gaz Regan’s 2003 book, “Joy of Mixology,” and the 2008 opening of a now-famous cocktail bar in Brooklyn named after the drink.

Episode 29: The Knickerbocker

• 2 ½ oz gold rum

• 1 teaspoon orange curacao liqueur

• ½ oz raspberry syrup (see below for recipe)

• ½ oz fresh lime juice (save lime “shell” for garnish)

• Fresh raspberries for garnish

Combine rum, curacao, raspberry syrup, & lime juice in a cocktail shaker with ice and shake until frosty. Strain into a rocks glass filled with crushed ice.

To garnish, flatten a squeezed-out half lime shell into a “cap” and place on top of the drink, then top with a few fresh raspberries before serving.  

Raspberry Syrup

• 2 cups of demerara sugar

• Pinch of salt

• 1 cup of water

• 12 oz raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Stir sugar and water over low heat until sugar has dissolved. Turn off heat, add raspberries, and stir and crush the raspberries until they’re broken up into a pulp. Strain into a jar and refrigerate for up to a week.
Any syrup not used within a week can be frozen for later use.

In 1809, Washington Irving published “A History of New York, from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty”, under the name "Diedrich Knickerbocker".

The name Knickerbocker originally came from a style of pants that Dutch settlers wore, but thanks to this book, the word came to signify an upper-crusty New Yorker who could trace their ancestry to the original Dutch settlers. Before long though, people just started using the word to mean anything and everything New York-y.

City leaders started naming streets and landmarks “knickerbocker”. Businesses across the city started naming themselves things like Knickerbocker Magazine or Knickerbocker beer, there’s a Knickerbocker hotel, and even the name of the New York Knicks is short for knickerbocker.

It’s not surprising that the name also attached itself to a cocktail. The new drink started being mentioned in newspapers in the 1850s, and then Jerry Thomas published the first written recipe for the drink in 1862. It’s made with golden rum, orange curacao (triple sec), lime juice, and raspberry syrup, which was basically the grenadine of the 19th century.

There are a bunch of variations on this cocktail now with a ton of added ingredients, but this version is almost identical to the original Jerry Thomas recipe.  

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Episode 22: National Guard Seventh Regiment Punch

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• 1 to 2 teaspoons sugar *see notes

• ½ oz lemon juice  

• 2 oz Brandy (preferably Cognac)

• 2 oz Catawba wine OR dry rosé wine **see notes

• 1 teaspoon raspberry syrup (recipe below)

• ¼ oz Jamaican rum (optional)

• Garnish: orange, pineapple, fresh berries 

Stir sugar and lemon juice together in a bar glass or rocks glass. 
Add brandy, wine, and raspberry syrup and fill the glass with ice (shaved or crushed preferable) 
Shake well and pour back into glass. 

Top with dark rum and garnish with fruit. Serve with a straw. 

NOTES:
* The original recipe calls for 2 teaspoons, but we found the cocktail far too sweet and much preferred it with only 1 teaspoon after some testing
** The original recipe called for a very sweet wine made from Catawba grapes. If you can’t find Catawba wine, Niagara or Concord grape wine will be very similar, or you could use any sweet white or rosé wine you like. However, we found this punch was far too sweet and much preferred it made with a dry rosé instead.

Raspberry Syrup

• 2 cups of demerara sugar

• 1 cup of water

• 1 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)

Stir sugar and water over low heat until sugar has dissolved. Add raspberries stirring until the berries form a pulp. Strain into a jar and refrigerate. Over time, the pectin will rise to the surface and can be skimmed off.

The “National Guard Seventh Regiment Punch”  was probably around before the 1860s but we don’t know the actual origins. We just know that the recipe was published by Jerry Thomas in 1862.

This drink is named after NYC’s seventh regiment, which used to be the only regiment that made up the national guard at one point in history. They were known as a “silk stocking” regiment, meaning they were mostly made up of fancy fifth avenue blue blood types. 

During the civil war they were on their way to go fight at Gettysburg, but NYC’s draft riots broke out and they were called back. Fighting draft rioters in NYC was actually the only combat they ever saw during the entire civil war. 

This is one of the more unique cocktails we’ve ever had. The original recipe called for a very sweet wine made from Catawba grapes. If you can’t find Catawba wine, Niagara or Concord grape wine will have a very similar flavor, but you could use any sweet white or rosé wine that you like. However, we found this punch to be far too sweet for modern tastes, and much preferred it when we tried a version made with a dry rosé instead. A later reprint of Thomas’ book called for Sherry. 

Catawba grapes are a hybrid of wild grapes native to the East Coast crossed with European wine grapes. Catawba wine can be a bit hard to find today, but 200 years ago it was everywhere in the US. In fact, Jerry Thomas’ book actually has several recipes that feature it. The flavor of Catawba wine is sweet and distinctly grape-y, tasting more like Concord grape juice than wine. Posh wine snobs refer to this flavor as “foxy” and say that it also has a wild, musky, animal smell, but we just tasted juice box.

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