The Ramos Gin Fizz cocktail was invented in the 1880s, around the same time as the Manhattan Cocktail. Initially named New Orleans Fizz, this drink has it all:
It tastes creamy, fresh, and citrusy, and has a gorgeous egg white foam, just the perfect drink to order at your favorite bar.
Quick Facts Ramos Gin Fizz Cocktail
But don't order multiple of these unless you intend to become the bartender's enemy of the night. You wonder why? Read on and find out why it can be one hell of a cocktail to make.
By looking at the list of ingredients, you can already guess that the Ramos Gin Fizz is a crowd-pleaser. It's a good amount of gin, lemon and lime juice, egg white & cream for the foam, and orange flower water to add this special flavor note:
No, unfortunately not. When you want to create a proper, classic Ramos Gin Fizz, there's no way you can skip the orange flower water. People are trying to replace it with orange juice or liqueur, but I do not recommend it.
However, if you intend to make a riff on the classic recipe, naturally, there are things you can use as a substitute.
Besides various cocktail bitters, a possible replacement is rose water. It is another very flavorsome ingredient - thus, you should also handle it with care - but it works great in a "Rose Ramos Gin Fizz."
From our experience, you should be good with 30 - 45 seconds in most cases. Quite a workout - especially if you have to do more than one.
That means you dry shake your cocktail for 15 - 25 seconds, then add ice and shake for another 15 - 20 seconds. That should get you a perfectly mixed Ramos Gin Fizz with a beautiful foamy top.
The good news is that it is a lot less than the 12 minutes mentioned in the original recipe for the perfect Ramos Gin Fizz. And a little less than the average of the usual recommendations range from 25 to 90 seconds in modern recipes.
Don't be discouraged if the foam is not as impressive as you hoped when trying for the first time. The Ramos Gin Fizz needs some practice. Yet, once you get there, the result is delicious and worth it.
So roll up your sleeves and grab your cocktail shaker. It's time to make some Ramos Gin Fizz cocktails.
Indeed, the most crucial part of preparing a Ramos Gin Fizz is the intense shaking. -Trust me, you don't want to do the initially required 12 to 15 minutes. Hence, make use of a technique called dry shaking:
What you should do for a "dry shake" is, add your ingredients to the shaker and leave off the ice. This way, the egg white emulsifies better, which gets you a thicker foam. After the dry shake, open the shaker, add ice, and shake again.
If this doesn't get you the result you're after, try a "reverse dry shake". Also a 2-step process, but here, you shake with ice first. -If you want to know more, read this article on Dry Shaking.
Other things to keep in mind when making a Ramos Gin Fizz are:
For many cocktails, it's hard to tell precisely when they were mixed for the first time and by whom, but all that is known for the Ramos Gin Fizz. On the contrary, the history of the drink is surprisingly well-documented.
Henry C. Ramos invented the Ramos Gin Fizz in 1888 in his bar, the Imperial Cabinet Saloon in New Orleans. Back then, he served it under the name New Orleans Fizz. And this New Orleans Fizz gained fame instantly.Â
By the time Henry C. Ramos opened another outlet (the Stag), people already had gotten used to referring to the creation by Henry's last name rather than New Orleans Fizz.
A consequence of the popularity of his drink was that Ramos had to hire more bartenders. And this got something to do with why the recipe is both loved and hated by bartenders - loved because it's a great drink, hated because it's laborious to make:
The original recipe wants the bartender to shake the cocktail for 12 to 15 minutes. That had been necessary to obtain a perfect egg-white foam.
And if you ever used a cocktail shaker before, you know what this means: it's hell. So to be able to serve many people at once, Ramos hired up to 20 bartenders, which all shook up his Ramos Gin Fizz simultaneously.
Other delicious gin cocktail recipes you should try from the early era of mixology are:
The classic Old Fashioned cocktail recipe is simple and goes a long way back to the 19th century. It's the type of drink that highlights your spirit by merely slightly twisting its taste.
An Old Fashioned is made with only four ingredients: base liquor (traditionally Whiskey), sugar cube, Angostura bitters, and a splash of water. To round it off, the drink usually is garnished with an orange peel or a Maraschino cherry.
Besides the Whiskey Sour, the Whiskey Old Fashioned probably is the most influential Whiskey cocktail in history. Unlike other drink templates, this one doesn't try to mask or cover the taste of the base spirit. Instead, it enhances the flavor profile of the liquor used to make it.
There's an ongoing debate on which type of Whiskey should be used in a classic Whiskey Old Fashioned cocktail, but honestly: there's no definitive answer.
If you're making a Whiskey based version of this drink, you can use Bourbon or Rye. Both work. You can even make it with a smoky Scotch, although this choice is a bit controversial.
Our favorite pick for a Bourbon Old Fashioned is Eagle Rare 10. For Rye, it's Whistlepig's 10-year Rye. But there are plenty more recommendations on Whiskey for making Old Fashioneds.
Muddling a dry sugar cube with a few drops of bitters and a splash of water is a defining element of this classic cocktail. It's one of the reasons why this drink is called an "Old Fashioned" after all.
So, the short answer is: go with a sugar cube if you want to keep it traditional. Yet, I understand well why one would prefer to use syrup instead. It's faster, and many bars also apply this modern technique in their Old Fashioned drinks.
Using simple syrup speeds up the process of making the drink, requires less skill, and you don't risk ending up with undissolved bits of sugar in your cocktail. Nevertheless, I recommend the old-school version.
Exception: There is one situation where I do without the classic sugar cube, which is when I experiment with flavored syrups in the Old Fashioned recipe.
Bitters are the best way to alter the profile of this cocktail. Depending on your base liquor of choice, you can accentuate certain flavors by choosing suitable cocktail bitters.
This topic is worth more than just a byline, but to keep it short here: you never go wrong with Angostura bitters. If you feel more creative and experimental, check out our hand-picked list of the best bitters for making an Old Fashioned.
In its original form, the Old Fashioned cocktail can be made with any sort of liquor. But as Whiskey once was the most common option used for drinks, it became the traditional way to make an Old Fashioned with Whiskey as the base spirit.
However, there are many more options. Thus, here are a few popular variations on the classic recipe: