White Woman Cocktail Recipe

Like many Prohibition-era basic cocktails, the sunshine and refreshing White Woman has a winding and nebulous historical past. Earlier than the mixture of London Dry gin, triple sec, lemon juice, and egg white grew to become the usual recipe, a totally completely different cocktail was generally known as the White Woman.

The primary and lesser-known model is believed to have been created by London-based bartender Harry McElhone. Based on The Oxford Companion of Spirits and Cocktails, McElhone’s model mixed brandy, crème de menthe, and Cointreau and first appeared in print within the 1922 version of Harry’s ABCs of Mixing Cocktails. 

The second iteration of the White Woman was comprised of gin, lemon juice, and triple sec, in equal proportions. The cocktail was shaken and served up with the occasional addition of an egg white for improved texture. This variation was wildly common in England by means of the Thirties, and the recipe was ultimately enshrined in Harry Craddock’s influential assortment of recipes, The Savoy Cocktail E book. When fashionable bartenders rediscovered the White Woman, it was rapidly adjusted for steadiness, and the recipe we all know right now took form.

Why the White Woman works

This model of the White Woman is predicated on two of essentially the most generally used cocktail codecs, the Daisy and the Bitter. A Daisy is any drink that mixes a base spirit with citrus juice and makes use of a liqueur because the sweetening agent as an alternative of sugar or easy syrup. If that mixture sounds acquainted, it’s as a result of the Daisy is the blueprint for the Margarita and the basic Sidecar. 

With the inclusion of an egg white, the White Woman additionally bears a resemblance to the standard Gin Bitter. With out including a lot taste, the egg white acts as a foaming agent. When shaken with the opposite substances, it provides the White Woman a thicker, frothier texture and in addition helps to melt any of the harsher flavors of the gin and lemon juice. 

The White Woman might be regarded as both a gin-based Daisy with egg white or a Gin Bitter with triple sec as an alternative of sugar. Nevertheless the drink is conceived of, this mix of kinds makes the White Woman an undeniably brilliant, smooth, and refreshing cocktail.