From the confines of the Gentlemen’s Companion II circa 1939 by Charles Baker comes this puppy. Back in the day these guys were putting egg in pretty much everything. Heating up some beer, adding an egg and maybe a couple three four ounces of scotch. During this era, or at least in this book, we see eggs being separated into respective whites and yolks for certain drinks as well as being used whole. A lot of them have great names which denote when they are required to rifle down the old gullet, such as: Whitfield Smith’s Sunday Morning Cocktail, a swizzled drink containing a mixture of two yolks, lots of rye or bourbon, cream, angostura bitters, and either benedictine or creme de cacao, then a touch of grated nutmeg. That with a waffle and bacon sounds pretty good.

The Porto Flip, or any of the egg based cocktails from that era, aren’t far off from one another. I guess it’s on my mind because we’ll be serving the nog soon. It sat for a month so far and it’s real thick. The day you mix it it’s pretty runny if you let it sit too long but if you shake it well enough it’ll be nice and frothy, that’s the biggest difference. Anyway, they all share a few similarities. Egg yolk, cream, booze, sugar or liqueur, and some nice grated nutmeg.

Porto Flip

Port wine; two jiggers

Egg, fresh essentially, 1 whole

Thick cream, 1 pony

Cognac, 1 pony

Sugar, 2 scant tsp.

Chartreuse, 1 tsp

Grated nutmeg

I like the introduction of chartreuse into pretty much anything. One of my old bosses back in New York used to put it in her hot chocolate. We had an espresso machine in the joint and you can heat up your hot chocolates to order with milk instead of water. Yeah, it was fire. Makes me want to take another shot at a spiked hot chocolate for the restaurant. I had a cool name for the time I did this. Yeah, at one point in history there were a bunch of dessert cocktails. Ah yes, we called it the Next Level Hot Chocolate.

I also had this weird one the other day, an original from the Nomad:

North Sea Oil

1.5 oz. Linie Aquavit

3/4 oz. Cocchi Americano

.5 oz. Islay Scotch (I used Ardbeg)

.25 oz. Grand Marnier

Garnish with grapefruit peel

This one…I’ll give it a 6. Not my thing…Too weird…It does work in a way, but I’d rather just drink a Negroni or Manhattan. But stirred cocktails, especially the seasonal kind have always been my kryptonite. It’s hard enough to come up with something original that’s shaken, stirred is really tough. I think it’s because the classic stirred drinks are so iconic and perfect, it’s hard to think beyond them.