The Ramos Gin Fizz

The Ramos Gin Fizz was invented sometime around 1890 by Henry Charles “Carl” Ramos at his Imperial Cabinet saloon in New Orleans. It includes lemon and lime juice, egg white, cream, and orange flower water, and, shaken properly, it becomes a foamy white concoction that has been called “the nectar of New Orleans,” “the Cadillac of Cocktails,” and “the Crescent City’s most notable contribution to civilized tippling.”

This book offers a history of the drink and a biography of its inventor, starting with the early years in which the Ramos Gin Fizz became nationally famous as a New Orleans icon. Although Prohibition almost put an end to it in New Orleans, it survived elsewhere—for instance, at the Cadillac Bar in Nuevo Laredo—and after Prohibition’s repeal, the drink quickly recovered and was once again a New Orleans favorite. In the 1940s and ’50s, it became known as a sophisticated and glamorous drink, popular with celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Tennessee Williams.

Like many classic American cocktails, the Ramos Gin Fizz was eclipsed by fruity disco drinks in the 1970s and ’80s (although it had a strange shadow life as a California brunch drink). With the cocktail revival at the turn of the century, however, it was again recognized as an American classic.

The Ramos Gin Fizz attempts to reconstruct Ramos’s original recipe using modern ingredients and addresses the question of how and how much to shake the drink, a subject on which there is surprisingly much to be said. Offering recipes for the original drink, a modern version, and many imaginative riffs, this eminently readable book is a must-have for any cocktail lover’s library.