There are few cocktails worth drinking in this corn syrup-addled world of ours, but occasionally the time and place presents itself when booze should indeed be mixed with more than just ice or vermouth. Those moments are called "brunch," and they usually occur A) at your own house, or B) at an overpriced café. Sometimes a finer establishment with a pleasant view of the stockyards will offer Breakfast Plus as well, but the kind of drinking done at Worthington Country Club at ten o'clock in the morning usually does not include vodka shots or whiskey.
To spare you from embarrassment, here's the name and recipe of a more socially acceptable concoction to have with brunch that won't put you in a diabetic coma. It's called a Ramos Gin Fizz, the exalted chef-d'oeuvre of one Henry C. Ramos, a New Orleans barkeep from the late nineteenth-century. The drink rose to greater prominence in 1935 when Senator Huey Long called a press conference in New York to demonstrate to the world how to make one properly. Flying up a bartender from his home state of Louisiana, Long made a memorable spectacle in front of the newsreel cameras, enjoying his first drink in two years "to make sure you gentlemen are getting the real thing." Five glasses later, the grinning Senator had succeeded in what many suspect was a diversion to prevent the US Treasury from intervening in an attempted sale of Louisiana state bonds.
So here's what you need as an excuse to drink in the morning:
1 1/2 ounce dry gin
1/2 ounce lemon juice
1/2 ounce lime juice
1 ounce powdered sugar
2 drops orange flower water
2 drops vanilla extract
2 ounces heavy cream
1 egg white
Soda water to top off
Combine everything in a cocktail shaker except for the soda, and shake for about a minute and a half. Then fill with ice, shake again for one to two minutes, and strain into a 12-ounce non-tapered glass. Top off with soda water. Makes one.
According to lore, Henry Ramos employed a small army of gawky soda jerks to shake each of his fizzes for ten minutes before serving. They do turn out better the longer they're shaken, but ten minutes is probably a little tiresome. And orange flower water is nice, but not always obtainable. Look for it in Mediterranean grocery stores. The drink still works without it, resembling frothy melted ice cream with a fizzy citrus twist.
Now raise your glass in memory of the Kingfish, the Honorable Huey Pierce Long, Jr., Senator from Louisiana and propagator of a most worthy alternative to the simpler libations to which we've grown accustomed. He never made good on his threat to lead an angry mob to hang his Senate colleagues for being too cozy with the rich, but his legend lives on in his accomplishment of making day-drinking more tolerable. For those of us denied the pleasantries of beer served with our eggs and cantaloupe, the Senator and Mr. Ramos remain to this day as truly the Drinker's Champions.
