ENDANGERED COCKTAIL OF THE MONTH-THE CLOVER LEAF COCKTAIL

By Pink Lady
It’s February which means Valentine’s Day might have you inspired to drink pink! If you know your way around classic cocktails, you’ve likely sipped a Clover Club Cocktail. Perhaps you’ve even had one at Julie Reiner’s famous Brooklyn Cocktail bar, which takes its name from the empinkened, pre-Prohibition libation. This month, I suggest trying a Clover Leaf Cocktail.

The Clover Leaf and the Clover Club share key characteristics: both deploy gin as a base, citrus juice, egg white and either grenadine (pomegranate syrup) or raspberry syrup. Harry Craddock described the Clover Leaf in The Savoy Cocktail Book (1930) as “The same as CLOVER CLUB, with a sprig of fresh Mint on top.”

In The Difford’s Guide, Simon Difford gets a little bit more into the weeds about which drink came first: “The first known recipe for Clover Leaf appears in Jacob Abraham Grohusko’s 1908 Jack’s Manual, while the first Clover Club is found in Paul E. Lowe’s 1909 book Drinks: How To Mix And How To Serve.” Both drinks appear in later editions of Jack’s Manual, with different instructions, and as the recipes are listed with the same name, just another example of how fuzzy history in the barroom can be.

February is also Black History Month, and we can do better than just toasting a greeting card holiday, right? Try mixing up Toni Tipton-Martin’s reimagined recipe for a Clover Leaf as you page through her cocktail book Juke Joints, Jazz Clubs & Juice: Cocktails from Two Centuries of African American Cookbooks. The book is a fascinating read, collating 70 “rediscovered, modernized or celebrated recipes” from the lauded food historian and cookbook author.

Tipton-Martin culled the recipes from her extensive Black cookbook collection “to establish a pedigree for our cocktails that can be traced through published recipes — a history that goes back centuries.” She also worked with her son Brandon, a trained bartender, and the Drinking Coach Tiffanie Barriere, who is a personal friend of mine and mixology maven for our time, while developing these recipes. It’s my favorite kind of cocktail book, the kind you’ll want to put your feet up and read as you mix your way through, preferably with a cocktail in hand.

CLOVER LEAF

1/2 ounce of Chambord Liqueur or
Pomegranate Grenadine
1/2 ounce of fresh lemon juice
1 ounce egg white OR
1/2 ounce half-and-half
1 1/2 ounce of Old Tom Gin

Combine the Chambord or grenadine, lemon juice, egg white or half-and-half, and gin in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake vigorously to combine, until the ingredients are cold and the mix is “frothy with a pink blush.” Strain into a chilled vintage cocktail glass. Garnish with a mint leaf.

Cin-cin!