How to Use Eggs in Cocktails

Like a surprising number of classic drinks, egg cocktails were originally used for medicinal purposes. In the thirteenth century, adding eggs to cocktails was a great way to increase caloric intake and nutritional value, while the richness in texture helped tie together ingredients and disguise the spirits to “help the medicine go down.”  

The first recorded recipe of an egg cocktail is for a drink called the Posset, which appears in Curye on Inglysch, an English culinary manual from the 1300s compiled by King Richard II’s chefs. This rich mixture of eggs, dairy, fortified wine or ale, and spices was enjoyed as both a cure-all and a delicacy. It was later cast aside for its more modern, festive cousin, eggnog.

Today, we extol what spirits professionals refer to as the mouthfeel, or texture, of egg cocktails. Over many years behind New York City bars, and as the consumer cocktail educator for Dear Irving and Raines Law Room since 2019, guests have consistently asked me to make egg cocktails. Mistakenly, I assumed teaching a sold out cocktail class at Dear Irving centered around them would be a breeze. It was fall of 2021, I had only been back to hosting in-person cocktail classes for a few months and tried to give the people what they wanted. You have to break a few eggs to make an omelet (or, in this case, a Whiskey Sour), and that class broke a lot of eggs. 

Rather than doom anyone else to such a sticky fate, we turned to a range of cocktail experts to teach you how to crack an egg, separate it like a pro, and shake it to frothy perfection while keeping the egg in the shaker tin and off your face.

How to crack an egg 

“When using eggs in drinks, the fresher, the better,” says Tim Herlihy, founder of Lost Irish Whiskey. Herlihy grew up on an egg farm in Ireland before making the “natural” transition from eggs to whiskey. “Cracking an egg on a flat surface rather than the edge of the shaker ensures a better break and reduces the likelihood of eggshells in your tin.”

To separate the white from the yolks, pour the egg back and forth between the shell halves, trapping the yolk in one while the white slips into the tin. Sarah Ku, bartender at New York City’s Porchlight, shakes the egg quickly before cracking it, to center the yolk. She then separates the egg white into the empty side of the tin of her shaker set, as opposed to the half with the cocktail ingredients. “In case of eggshells or egg yolks breaking, you can still save the liquor,” she explains.

Using a Cobbler shaker? Separate your egg over a bowl to reduce mishaps, like pesky wayward shell bits, that would ruin your cocktail and force you to start from scratch.

You may substitute aquafaba if you are vegan, or use pasteurized egg whites, although pasteurization changes the protein structure and may result in less fluffy fizzes.

The science behind egg cocktails

“There are four main variables when mixing a drink: temperature, dilution, combination, aeration,” says Mark Schettler, the general manager of Bar Tonique in New Orleans, “Some drinks, like a Ramos Gin Fizz, want a nice big meringue. In that case, a wet shake followed by a dry shake is best. You’re shaking for temperature, dilution, combination, and some initial aeration. You dry shake to really aerate it.”

Shaking without ice, also known as  dry shaking, emulsifies egg proteins and ingredients, a process akin to whipping a meringue. The technique has been utilized in bars since roughly the 1950s  (it appears in the 1951 cocktail book Bottom’s Up by Ted Saucier) and was later popularized at New York City cocktail bars like Milk & Honey and Pegu Club in the 2000s.  Dry shaking gives the meringue a head start and keeps your cocktail from being overly diluted. Once ice is added for a “wet shake,” you begin to chill and dilute.

Discovering little ways to expedite the process of incorporating egg proteins is a game changer in the cocktail world, especially once you learn that the original Ramos was meant to be shaken for 12 minutes.

Schettler says that the order of shaking boils down to surface tension and the nature of using a hydrocolloid. 

“In a Ramos, I want aromatic orange flower water on top. I specifically want a large head to really lock a lid on top of the aromatics in the spirits — Pisco in a Pisco Sour is a great example of this,” he says. “We float aromatic ingredients [or make stenciled art] on top of the hydrocolloid lid.” Dry shaking at the end, like Schettler does with his Ramos, helps form that lid. It’s also recommended to pour it into the glass and pop the cocktail in the freezer before adding the soda to really help it set. 

Don’t have a cocktail tin handy? Beverage consultant Pam Wiznitzer recommends using a protein drink shaker to hack your way to perfect foam at home. Making multiple? Do it like they do in Peru and use a blender with half the amount of ice you would shake with.

After shaking, Ku says “double strain” your cocktail through a fine mesh strainer to avoid  the unpleasant surprise of possible remnants of “unincorporated egg white as you drink your cocktail.”

After making an egg cocktail, rinse your tools in cold water before washing to keep the eggs from adhering to your tins.

Egg cocktails to try 

Recipes use egg whites for texture or to temper other ingredients. They give Sours their mouthfeel, and Fizzes, their magnificent muffin top of foam. Try adding one to a New York Sour, Herlihy’s favorite as “it combines three aspects of my life: eggs, whiskey and New York.” 

Have leftover yolks after a baking project? Try your hand at a Flip, originally a beverage from the 1700s associated with sailors that involves ale, brandy, and sugar, originally cooked via a red hot poker thrust into the drink., By the late 1800’s Flips had evolved into cold cocktails featuring the richness of whole eggs or sometimes just the yolk. 

Ku adores rum flips, “an in-between of Coquito and Eggnog.” For another take on a holiday classic, the a Tom & Jerry is a classic of the category.