Whiskey Sour Cocktail

You may remember a whiskey sour as that rather awful drink you once drank in a somber but exciting college bar, but like many cocktails, the whiskey sour lives and dies by its ingredients.

The History of the Whiskey Sour

The recipe for a whiskey sour first appeared in print in a book entitled Whiskey Sour in 1862 The Bartender Guide by JerryThomas. But according to some cocktail historians, sailors invented the whiskey sour!

In the past, seafarers were given an allowance for spirits (usually whiskey or rum, since water tended to go bad on long voyages) and citrus (because the vitamin C in lemons and limes helped prevent scurvy). Put them together; Add a little sugar and you have a whiskey sour!

It’s also possible that the whiskey sour is just a scaled-down version of a punch fit for just one. Punch predates cocktails by quite a while, but if you look back at old punch recipes, you’ll notice the basic structure of a whiskey sour: base spirit, citrus, and sweeteners.

However the Whiskey Sour came to be, when you drink one you can be assured that you are part of a long and proud tradition!

What Type of Whiskey Should I Use?

If you’re buying specifically for this drink I wouldn’t choose anything too expensive as the lemon and sugar cover the complexity that characterizes these whiskeys. For rye, Rittenhouse and Old Overholt are very good; For bourbon, try Four Roses or Wild Turkey.

Should I add a raw egg white?

You can make a wonderful whiskey sour by following the original recipe, which is just whiskey, lemon juice, and sugar. These three ingredients balance each other beautifully.

But if you want to take your whiskey sour to the next level, add an egg white. This will actually not make your cocktail taste like egg. Instead, the egg white adds texture, richness, and a special creaminess that makes it almost like a whiskey milkshake.

Now I know what you’re thinking: What about salmonella?

Your chances of getting salmonella from raw eggs are pretty slim. The CDC estimates that only about 1 in 20,000 eggs is contaminated with the bacteria, and even if you receive a contaminated egg, the bacteria doesn’t have a chance to multiply as long as the egg is refrigerated below 45°F.

If you’re still concerned, you can buy pasteurized eggs, which are heated for a period of time to eliminate bacteria. You can also use pre-packaged, pasteurized egg whites like whisks, which also saves you the trouble of extracting the egg white from the yolk.

How to shake a whiskey sour

One of the nice things about adding egg whites to your cocktail is the rich, creamy texture it imparts. Try one of these shaking styles for a nice, frothy drink:

1. A dry shake: First shake the cocktail without ice, then add the ice and shake again.
2. A reverse dry shake: First, shake the cocktail with ice; strain the ice and shake again.

I prefer the texture imparted by the traditional dry shake, but if you want to get a really ridiculous amount of foam, the reverse dry shake is the way to go.

Adding bitters to your whiskey sour

Should You Add Angostura Bitters to Your Whiskey Sour? Yes! Angostura bitters add dimension and a bit of visual panache to the taste. Use an eyedropper (or a very gentle motion with the bottle) to drip bitters onto the top of your egg white foam, then use a toothpick (or cocktail pick) to make patterns in the foam. The sky is the limit!

More whiskey recipes for this fall:

• Manhattan cocktail
• Penicillin cocktail
• Boulevardier cocktail
• Autumn flavored Old Fashioned Cocktail