Fall is officially here in the Pacific Northwest. There’s a chill in the air, the trees have changed color, and the rains have returned. With that in mind, this week we decided to talk about a richer, more cold-weather style of drink. Most folks are familiar with eggnog and even the Tom & Jerry. These are actually flips, drinks that are made with a whole egg, either hot or cold.

To get the definitive word on flips, we pulled out Paul Clarke’s excellent book The Cocktail Chronicles. According to Mr. Clarke:

The Flip was one of the mainstays of mixology’s earliest epoch. A variety of ingredients found their way into Flips during Colonial days and the early years of the infant republic – the Flip’s family tree includes everything from ale and rum to cream and molasses – but a common element was a raw egg, beaten or shaken into the mixture, which was sometimes seared into a froth with a red-hot poker…

With that as our guide, we perused some of the recipes. Not having a red-hot poker handy (though we do have a titanium rod for just such a thing, but it lives at our other location and we didn’t have it handy today;)) we settled on trying a cold flip first.

Colleen Bawn (Adapted by home town bartending hero Murray Stenson)

• 3/4 oz rye
• 3/4 oz yellow Chartreuse
• 3/4 oz Benedictine
• 1 whole, organic egg
• 1 tsp. simple syrup

Dry shake all ingredients until mixed. Shake with ice. Double strain into a glass. Garnish with fresh grated nutmeg and cinnamon. Cheers!

• Nose: Nutmeg and cinnamon. Slightly sweet herbal. Tiny bit of metallic smell from the egg.
• Palate: Nutty notes and rye spice to start. Big, round sweet flavor like ginger bread on the mid-palate, with molasses, baking spices & ginger, which then dries out into honey, pollen and herbal flavors. Finish is nutmeg and barrel notes with a return of the rye spice. Great mouth feel and texture, very smooth and silky. Comes across much lighter than expected; given the amount of liqueur and a whole egg we expected it to be somewhat syrupy.

Next up, we decided to come up with our own hot flip (using hot milk rather than a hot poker though – sorry!). We used the Tom & Jerry as an inspiration, adding in some black walnut liqueur and subbing maple syrup in place of sugar for the sweetener.

Maple Flip (a Booze Nerds original)

• 1 1/2 oz demerara rum
• 3/4 oz bourbon
• 3/4 oz black walnut liqueur
• 3/4 oz maple syrup – divided.
• 1 whole egg
• 4 oz milk

Heat up milk. Separate the egg. Beat egg yolk with 1/2 oz maple syrup. Whip eggs whites until stiff peaks form. Fold into the egg yolk mixture. Mix all spirits and remaining 1/4 oz maple syrup into a vessel. Stir in hot milk. Top generously with egg batter. Enjoy!

• Nose: Rich maple, egg, walnut. Kinda like french toast. 😉
• Palate: More of a bite on the first sip than you’d expect. We recommend you add more milk if you don’t want it quite so boozy. Starts off with rich creamy molasses, black walnut and coffee. Mid-palate is maple and bourbon, spicy-sweetness balanced by oak barrel notes and a little cedar. Finish is very rummy (in a good way ), and much drier than expected. Aftertaste is fairly spicy. Overall, the drink isn’t as sweet as you’d expect, with a heavy though not syrupy body. Quite rich too.

There you have it, a couple cooler weather drinks to keep you warm during the upcoming autumn nights. Wherever you are, we hope you’re enjoying the crisp evenings – if not, have another flip and at least you probably won’t notice it. Cheers!