018 – Clover Club

A Sydney ‘lock-down’ version of the famous pre-Prohibition ‘Clover Club’ cocktail.

Sydney’s Covid Lockdown has inspired me to explore this famous cocktail. Let’s take a look at the once super-popular ‘Clover Club’, that only really started re-appearing on cocktail lists from around 2008.

Make your own Locktail, the ‘Clover Club’. Here is my Sydney Lock-Tail recipe:

METHOD — RASPBERRY SYRUP (make in advance) – Muddle 125gm fresh Raspberries into 100gm sugar and 60ml water in a pot. Then slowly heat until very warm (steam is coming from the mixture, do not boil as the flavour will change), remove heat and let sit for around 30-minutes to cool slightly. Strain out all solids. Strain again. Chill before use. Should last around 2-to-3 weeks and make around 200ml or more of fresh raspberry syrup – sufficient for around six cocktails. An alternative is to use either ‘sous vide’ or other infusion methods to create the syrup.

COCKTAIL – Add 60ml Old Tom Style Gin (I have used Hammer & Son, Old English Gin), 30ml Dry French Vermouth (I recommend Noilly Prat for this mix), 30ml Raspberry Syrup (as described above), 20ml fresh Lemon juice, and around 10ml of fresh Egg White (one egg white for every 3-4 cocktails), into a shaker. Dry shake (no-ice) for around 20-seconds to foam mix and break down egg protein bonds. Add a hand-full of ice and shake again until cold (10 to 15 seconds). Double strain (use hawthorn strainer and a fine mesh strainer) into a chilled cocktail glass, ensure you include foam on the top of the cocktail. Garnish with fresh raspberries if desired.

HISTORICAL NOTES – The ‘Clover Club’ was a Philadelphia ‘Gentlemen’s Club’ that operated in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel from around 1882 until the 1920’s. It is remembered mostly because of the cocktail created there in around 1896, the ‘Clover Club’ cocktail.

A club for captain’s of industry, writers, lawyers and other Philadelphia establishment, it was common to toast with a Cocktail, and the cocktail of choice was the ‘Clover Club’. By the early 1900’s, it had turned up in New York and other parts of the USA, with press as early as 1901 in the ‘New York Press’, with instructions including “gin, lemon juice, sugar, raspberry syrup, and egg white”.

In Thomas Bullock’s ‘The Ideal Bartender’ published in 1917, the ‘Clover Club’ recipe was “2 pony Raspberry Syrup. 2 jigger Dry Gin. 1 jigger French Vermouth. White of 1 Egg”. Also in 1917, Jeanette Young Norton published a recipe in her self-titled ‘Mrs. Norton’s Cook-book: Selecting, Cooking, and Serving for the Home Table’, which was “juice of half a lemon, a sixth jigger of grenadine, one jigger of gin, French vermouth.”

When Prohibition started (1920–1933), the club came to an end and the cocktail became just a recipe in the books that pre-dated the era. When drinks returned in the depression (1929–1939), the Second World War (1939–1945) and afterward, drinking preferences had changed. Something we will explore as the ‘Locktail’ re-mixes continue into later decades. For one thing, most bars used ‘mixes’, not fresh raspberries and egg white. Although more relevant, is that cocktails like this came to be considered feminine. If a man were to order them, it would have been considered culturally inappropriate. The ‘Clover Club’ instead morphed into other drinks, such as the ‘Pink Lady’ that were expected to be consumed only by women.

The ‘Clover Club’ disappeared off cocktail lists until well after 2000. In 2007 it was featured by Dave Wondrich in a column for ‘Esquire’ magazine. In 2009 Julie Reiner gave it a makeover, and named her Brooklyn Bar after it – creating a new ‘Clover Club’. Welcome back to an almost lost cocktail classic.

THE OFFICIAL MIX – The ‘Clover Club’ in on the International Bartender Association (IBA)’s ‘Unforgettables’ list, one of only 33-cocktails to be recognised in this way. The IBA recipe is here, and is 45ml Gin, 15ml fresh Raspberry syrup, 15ml fresh Lemon juice and a few drops of egg white. Shake and strain into a chilled glass. Garnish with fresh raspberries.

TASTING NOTES – As you can see from above, there are a few variants around, and the official IBA recipe does not contain any Vermouth. Also although economical for a Bar at around 75ml total fluid, and I guess also responsible in alcohol load, this is a cocktail that really needs to fill a Martini glass, so that the foam sits high in the glass. Although the 1901 recipe does not have Vermouth, it is both a pleasing addition and in many later mixes, adding some balance to the raspberry and lemon. Made as shown in my recipe above, this is a very enjoyable cocktail, with sweet raspberry, some sourness from the lemon and complexity from the Gin and the Vermouth. Sweet without being too-sweet. My recipe will create around 150ml of total fluid and go close to filling a standard Martini glass.

LOCKTAIL CHANGES – I am heading back towards Thomas Bullock’s 1917 recipe and enlisting French Vermouth in the mix. He does not list lemon juice, which I think is an oversight, as otherwise this cocktail doesn’t ‘foam’ properly. The fresh raspberry syrup is a must. Shifting to pre-made is awful, as the fresh raspberry flavour is the key to this cocktail, ‘Grenadine’ doesn’t do it justice and alcohol such as ‘Chambord’ makes the cocktail too alcohol heavy. Lemon and egg white give both some tartness and the famous pink foam. An Old Tom Gin, such as the Hammer & Son, Old English Gin, keep the botanicals in the background and give some more sweetness. A dry quality French Vermouth, like Noilly Prat, adds some complexity and ensures some dryness on the palate and keeps the cocktail from becoming overly sweet. I am very happy with the end result and had no choice but to give it 4-stars or better.

YOUR LOCKTAIL EXPERIENCE – If you’d rather taste than read, I am progressively building an ingredient list and other sourcing information on this site. I will re-use ingredients where I can (good for my budget too), so that the cost goes down overtime if you are ‘playing at home’.

Let me know what you think.

Cocktails you’d like reinvented.

Recipes you’ve tried and your ‘score’.

This is the 8th of the 1900-1910 bracket of ‘Locktail’ remixes. See the full list in the index.