Today, the cocktail establishment preaches balance to the point where seemingly no quirky, sweet-treat cocktail in our vast canon is safe from being retroactively “corrected.” But what about those drinks that were created explicitly for imbibers with a sweet tooth who don’t want to taste the burn of alcohol? That’s precisely for whom the sloe gin fizz is intended.
This summery shaken drink is usually made from sloe gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and club soda. Of course, some tweaks are inevitable as drinkers’ tastes shift away from saccharine, booze-masking concoctions. Among them: mixing alcohols for the base, reducing its sweetness and adding egg white to the recipe. However, there’s a risk to this approach: At what point does a cocktail lose its identity?
Danny Shapiro, owner of Scofflaw, the gin-centric bar in Chicago, is a sloe gin fizz evangelist. He describes the drink as “a delicious treat of a cocktail” along the lines of an amaretto sour. It’s one of the most popular drinks on his menu. Unsurprisingly, Shapiro doesn’t approve of the recent trend of substituting half the sloe gin base for gin—he says it’s like adding a bunch of high-proof whiskey to an amaretto sour—which makes a different cocktail altogether, for a different drinker.
“The person who loves sloe gin fizzes loves them for being sweet and delicious,” Shapiro says. This isn’t what you’d reach for in a pensive, slow-consuming situation. Below, he shares the recipe he’s perfected.
What is Sloe Gin?
Before we get
This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast
