Sips & Synopsis
This Weeks Makings.
A week from today, at one minute past midnight in France, this year's Beaujolais Nouveau goes on sale. It's the first wine of the 2026 harvest, released only weeks after the grapes came in. It's light and fruity.
Most people pour it with dinner. This year, try putting half an ounce of it on top of a whiskey sour first.
That drink is the New York Sour. Whiskey, lemon, and sugar, shaken with an egg white, then a thin layer of red wine poured over the top. The wine sits in a red band above the pale foam, and every sip pulls a little of both.
In this week's newsletter:
The New York Sour, and how to get the wine to float
How to shake egg white for a silky foam
Two bonus cocktails, one gin and one rum
A zero proof version with black tea and a red float
Trivia Question❓
True or false: Beaujolais Nouveau has gone on sale on the third Thursday of November for as long as it's been sold.
Answer at the bottom of the newsletter
New York Sour
A whiskey sour with a float of dry red wine. Tart and silky underneath, a little jammy on top.
Ingredients
2 oz rye or bourbon
1 oz fresh lemon juice
0.75 oz simple syrup
0.5 oz egg white (optional)
0.5 oz dry, fruity red wine, such as this year's Beaujolais Nouveau
Lemon peel to garnish
Directions
Add the whiskey, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg white to a shaker with no ice
Close it tight and shake hard for 15 seconds
Add ice and shake again for about 12 seconds, until the tin feels cold
Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice
Hold a bar spoon upside down about an inch above the drink. Pour the wine slowly over the back of the spoon so it spreads across the top
Squeeze the lemon peel over the glass and drop it in. Do not stir
Why It Works
The wine floats because the sour underneath is heavier. Sugar and lemon juice make it dense, and dry wine is lighter, so a slow pour settles on top instead of sinking. Pour fast and the wine punches through and turns the whole drink pink. It still tastes good. It won't look the same.
Light, fruity reds work best. Beaujolais Nouveau is made from Gamay grapes with whole-berry fermentation, which keeps it fruity and low in tannin (the winemaking is explained here). The standard recipe calls for Malbec or Shiraz, and either one works if you can't find a Nouveau (the standard recipe is here).
Nobody knows for sure who made it first, and it may not have started in New York at all. Difford's Guide says it's thought to date to the 1880s, when a Chicago bartender served it as the Continental Sour, and that the New York name probably came later from a Manhattan bartender who made it popular (the story is here). The oldest printed recipe word historian Barry Popik has found is a Continental Sour in the Boston Herald in December 1933, finished with claret. The Chicago story has no primary source behind it yet (the citations are here).
Behind the Bar - Egg White and the Dry Shake
Egg white doesn't add a flavor you'll notice. It adds texture. A sour shaken with egg white has a silky body and a soft foam cap that holds a garnish, or a float of wine, on top.
The trick is shaking twice. The first shake has no ice, so nothing gets in the way and the egg whips into foam. The second shake, with ice, chills and dilutes the drink. Skip the first one and you get a thin, bubbly layer that's gone in a minute.
How to shake egg white well:
Use a carton of pasteurized egg whites if raw eggs give you pause. Half an ounce is about half of one large white.
Hold the shaker closed with both hands on the dry shake. Without ice, the tins don't grip each other as well and can pop open.
For more foam, reverse it. Shake with ice first, strain the ice out, then shake again without it.
For a vegan version, use about 0.75 oz of aquafaba, the liquid from a can of chickpeas.
Pour through a small mesh strainer. It catches ice chips and leaves a smoother foam.
The template underneath:
Spirit, lemon or lime, sugar, and an egg white. Whiskey makes a Whiskey Sour. Gin and raspberry make this week's Clover Club. Pisco and lime make a Pisco Sour. Float red wine on the Whiskey Sour and you're back to this week's main drink.
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Bonus Cocktails
Two more this week. One gin and one rum, and no whiskey in either.
Clover Club
Gin, lemon, raspberry, and egg white. Pink, tart, and silky.
Ingredients
1.5 oz London dry gin
0.5 oz dry vermouth
0.5 oz fresh lemon juice
0.5 oz raspberry syrup (below)
0.5 oz egg white
3 fresh raspberries to garnish
For the syrup, simmer 1/2 cup fresh or frozen raspberries with 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup water for 5 minutes, pressing the berries as they soften. Strain and let it cool. It keeps in the fridge for about a week.
Directions
Add everything to a shaker with no ice and shake hard for 15 seconds. Add ice and shake again until the tin is cold. Strain through a small mesh strainer into a chilled coupe. Garnish with the raspberries on a pick.
Why it works
It's named for the Clover Club, a Philadelphia men's club chartered in 1882 that met at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel. Recipes nearly identical to today's show up by 1908, and Raymond Sullivan's Barkeeper's Manual listed it as the Clover Club Cocktail in 1910. By the late 1930s it had fallen out of favor, and a 1939 drink book called it “an awful mixture” (the record is here). Julie Reiner brought it back at her Brooklyn bar of the same name, and her version adds the half ounce of dry vermouth (her recipe is here). The vermouth dries out the raspberry so it tastes like fruit instead of candy. Leave it out and you've got the older version.
Jungle Bird
Dark rum, Campari, pineapple, and lime. Bitter and fruity, with a molasses finish.
Ingredients
1.5 oz blackstrap rum or dark Jamaican rum
0.75 oz Campari
1.5 oz pineapple juice
0.5 oz fresh lime juice
0.5 oz demerara syrup (equal parts demerara sugar and hot water, stirred until dissolved)
Pineapple wedge to garnish
Directions
Add everything to a shaker with ice. Shake for about 12 seconds. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice and garnish with the pineapple wedge.
Why it works
Jeffrey Ong, the beverage manager at the Kuala Lumpur Hilton, made it in 1973 as a welcome drink for the hotel's Aviary Bar. It was named for the birds in the aviary you could see from the bar, and the first ones were served in a bird-shaped ceramic vessel. In 2010 Giuseppe González at Painkiller in New York cut the pineapple juice from 4 oz to 1.5 oz and called for blackstrap rum, and that's the version most bartenders make now. The International Bartenders Association added it to its official list in 2024 (the history is here). Campari's bitterness keeps the pineapple from tasting like a juice box. Blackstrap rum brings molasses, which makes a tropical drink work on a cold night.
“...and the wine is bottled poetry.”
Mocktail or Zero Proof Option
The Zero Proof New York Sour
Strong black tea stands in for the whiskey. Same lemon, same foam, and a red float on top.
Ingredients
2 oz strong black tea, cooled
1 oz fresh lemon juice
0.75 oz simple syrup
0.5 oz egg white or 0.75 oz aquafaba (optional)
0.5 oz non-alcoholic red wine
Lemon peel to garnish
Directions
Add the tea, lemon juice, simple syrup, and egg white to a shaker with no ice and shake hard for 15 seconds. Add ice and shake again until cold. Strain into a rocks glass over fresh ice. Pour the non-alcoholic wine slowly over the back of a bar spoon so it spreads across the top. Squeeze the lemon peel over the glass and drop it in.
Black tea brings the dry finish whiskey usually gives a sour. Non-alcoholic wine is heavier than regular wine, so some of it may sink and leave a pink fade instead of a clean red line. It tastes the same either way. Tart cherry juice works if you don't have a bottle.
💡 Answer to Trivia Question:
False.
The date has moved around. Rules from 1937 kept Beaujolais off the market until December 15 of the harvest year. In 1951 the rules relaxed, and the growers' association set November 15 as the release date. By the 1970s the race to get the first bottles to Paris had turned into a national event. In 1985 French authorities moved the release to the third Thursday of November, at 12:01 a.m., which this year is November 19 (the release history is here).
🏁 Closing Time
Beaujolais Nouveau goes on sale next Thursday, one week before Thanksgiving.
Pick up one bottle. Make a New York Sour that night with half an ounce of it, and pour the rest with dinner. If the house likes it, you've got a red for the Thanksgiving table and a drink to make while the turkey rests.
Until next week,
Andrea
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This content is intended for readers of legal drinking age and is for entertainment and educational purposes only. Please drink responsibly.
