Rye Maple Fizz

Fizzes are my go-to for the summer time, but I stumbled upon the Rye Maple Fizz, which is a fizz but uses rye, one of my favorite spirits for cold weather time.  The addition of maple syrup as the sweetener and grated cinnamon on top of the fluffy egg white make this a drink that I will likely make year-round.

Ingredients:

2 ounces rye

3/4 ounce lemon juice

1/2 ounce maple syrup

1 egg white (or 1/2 ounce of egg white from a carton)

2 dashes of Angostura bitters

Cinnamon

Soda water

Add rye, lemon juice, maple syrup, egg white, and bitters to a shaker without ice.  Shake well for one minute (or see below for a trick to shorten this time).  Add ice to the shaker.  Shake again to chill the drink.  Strain into a highball over ice.  Top off with soda.  Grate cinnamon on top.

I need to briefly talk about rye.  I love rye.  It is essentially whiskey made from at least 51% rye grain.  Rye tends to add a peppery bite to the whiskey.  The beauty of rye is that you can find wonderful ryes which are very inexpensive.  This makes them ideal for mixing.  For example, with the Rye Maple Fizz, I used Old Overholt, which can be found for under $20.  I also like Rittenhouse, which is a bit more expensive, but a steal at under $30 and is 100 proof.  Don't get me wrong, I also like more expensive ryes.  One of life's little luxuries is to make a mixed drink with a spirit that is good enough for sipping.  But especially when you are entertaining, I would lean towards value spirits, and you will not be disappointed with Old Overholt or Rittenhouse.

In the instructions, I mentioned that there is a trick to shorten the "dry shake."  As a refresher, a dry shake is shaking a drink without ice.  It is necessary to emulsify and whip egg white in drinks.  To properly create the luxurious egg white foam, you need to shake the hell out of a drink for at least a minute.  I mean your arms are gonna be aching by the time you are done.  Audrey Saunders of Pegu Club likes to throw in a cat toy (unused of course!) to the tin before shaking.  The cat toy coagulates the egg white protein by acting like a whisk within the shaker.  Some bartenders like to take the spring off of a hawthorne strainer and use that.  I decided to go a different route and use the ball that comes with a blender bottle.  Blender bottles come with a spherical whisk meant to whip together protein shakes.  It works wonderfully to aid in the dry shake and the egg white that results is great!  I would recommend getting something like this to aid in your homemade egg white cocktails, especially when entertaining.  It not only shortens the time needed, but saves your arms from feeling like they will fall off.

There you have it.  The Rye Maple Fizz.  A light drink made with a dark spirit; it is perfect for any time of the year so I hope you make one soon!