Clover Club (Vermeire)
Gin - 1½ oz
Dry Vermouth - ¾ oz
Raspberry Syrup - ½ tbsp
Lime Juice - ¾ oz
Egg White - ½
Shake everything with ice and strain into a chilled wine glass.
From Robert Vermeire’s Cocktails: How to Mix Them.
Vermeire’s version of Clover Club is similar to Jimmy’s of Ciro’s, in that this is also a Clover Club involving vermouth. I found Vermeire’s recipe a little easier to understand. This time I’m not going to use the gill or ml as the measurement, and rounded them to the nearest common American measurements, just to make things easier, they shouldn’t affect the overall drink much.
The recipe called for “The juice of a small fresh Lime”. Now I don’t this sort of recipe because there are at least a dozen types of lime out there, and each of them are different in terms of size, flavour, and acidity. Even if the limes used back in Vermeire’s days are the same as the ones we used today, their size would have been much smaller. So this is where you need to adjust the amount based on your own taste. An average lime today would yield about an ounce of juice, so I went with ¾ ounce instead; however had it been Asian limes, they would have no more than ½ ounce juice each. The amount I went with results in a slightly tart drink, but not too excessive, especially with the dry vermouth somehow smoothes out some of that sharpness; should you want a sweeter drink then reduce the amount to ½ ounce.
Using egg yolk instead of egg white gives you a Royal Clover Club; and Vermeire’s Clover Leaf Cocktail calls for 1 or 2 sprigs of mint to be shaken with everything else, and of course garnished with a mint leaf.
