Clover Club
The Clover Club was the house drink of a Philadelphia institution: a club of journalists, lawyers and industrialists who met at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel from the 1880s to trade toasts and abuse. Their cocktail spread through pre-Prohibition America as a byword for sophistication, a rose-pink sour under a white crown, ordered by men who ran newspapers and railways and saw nothing unmanly in a drink the colour of a debutante's corsage. The twentieth century was less secure. The drink's colour saw it dismissed for decades as something unserious, until the cocktail revival called the sneer's bluff: Julie Reiner named her Brooklyn bar after it in 2008 and put the drink back where it started, at the centre of the conversation. The lesson stands: pink was never the opposite of serious. Made properly it justifies every year of the fuss. Dry gin, sharp lemon and real raspberry syrup, with an egg white shaken into a foam like a rose-tinted cloud: tart, silky and balanced on a knife-edge between orchard and bar.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Raspberries on a pick
Ingredients
45ml
The dry backbone under the silk: a proper London Dry keeps the drink grown-up while the raspberry and foam do the charm.
15ml
Fifteen millilitres is short by sour standards, because the raspberry syrup is already tart and the official build has nothing else underneath to balance against. Squeezed to order, or the whole drink reads flat behind the foam.
15ml
The drink’s colour and heart: cold-processed from real berries, bright and tart. Grenadine substitutes structurally but repaints the drink in the wrong colour.
A few drops
The architecture: dry-shaken into a dense foam crown that holds to the last sip. Aquafaba swaps in identically for anyone avoiding egg.
3
Three on a pick laid across the rim, and not only decoration: dragging them through the crown between sips refreshes the berry aroma as the foam settles.
Instructions
Add the gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white to a shaker without ice.
Dry shake hard for 10 seconds to build the foam.
Add ice and shake again for 10 to 12 seconds.
Double strain into a chilled coupe and let the foam settle into its crown.
Garnish with the raspberries on a pick, laid across the rim.
Source: the IBA (Official IBA specification; method ours). Last checked 13 August 2026.
Expert Tip
The dry shake is not optional and it goes first. Ten seconds without ice lets the egg proteins unwind and build a foam in a warm shaker; the iced shake afterwards chills that foam and tightens it into a crown that holds to the last sip. Do it in the other order and the cold sets the protein before it can stretch, and the head collapses within a minute. Judge the raspberry syrup by taste before you pour it. A real one carries acidity as well as sugar; a thin commercial cordial brings sweetness alone and leaves the drink flat in the middle, which is where the older specifications reached for a measure of dry vermouth instead. Double strain, then wait. The foam needs about twenty seconds in the glass to separate cleanly from the liquid underneath it.
Flavour Profile
The Origin
The Clover Club was a men's club in Philadelphia, made up of journalists, lawyers and industrialists, that met at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel from the 1880s to eat, drink and insult one another in a formalised way. The drink is theirs, and it carried the club's name out into pre-Prohibition America as a byword for sophistication.
What is worth noticing is who was ordering it. This was a rose-pink sour under a white crown, drunk by men who ran newspapers and railways, and nobody at the time appears to have thought it required any explanation. The idea that colour indicates seriousness arrived later.
It arrived, and it stuck. For most of the twentieth century the drink was dismissed on sight, until Julie Reiner named her Brooklyn bar after it in 2008 and put it back at the centre of the conversation.
The Dry Shake
Shaking the egg white without ice first lets the proteins unwind and foam in the warm shaker; the second, iced shake chills and tightens that foam into a crown that holds to the last sip. Shortcut it and the head collapses in a minute. Ten seconds dry, ten to twelve wet, double strain, and let the foam settle into its architecture.
Raspberry Syrup
The syrup is the soul of the drink and it should be the real thing. Cold-processed syrup, made from fresh or frozen raspberries left in sugar overnight and strained with no heat involved, keeps the bright, sharp top note that cooking drives off. It takes ten minutes of attention and a night of waiting.
Grenadine substitutes structurally and repaints the drink in the wrong colour, inside and out: pomegranate is deeper, rounder and less tart, and the result is a perfectly nice drink that is not this one.
Muddled fresh berries work at need but turn the drink pulpy and inconsistent, because a punnet varies more than a syrup does. If you go that route, muddle them with the lemon and syrup before anything else joins them, and strain twice.
Egg White Questions
Fresh, properly stored eggs carry very low risk, and the citrus and alcohol are hostile territory besides; aquafaba at two tablespoons per drink foams identically for anyone who prefers to skip egg entirely. Either way the foam is structural, not cosmetic: the drink’s tart raspberry line is designed to arrive through silk.
How to Serve It
A properly chilled coupe, three raspberries across the rim, served promptly: foam waits for nobody. Drag the garnish through the crown between sips, and serve it to exactly the person who claims not to take pink drinks seriously.
The Vermouth Question
Fifteen millilitres of dry vermouth appears in the pre-Prohibition specifications and not in the official one, which is the single biggest difference between the versions you will be served.
Raspberry syrup and lemon on their own make a sweet-sour drink with a lot of fruit in it. The vermouth adds a dry, herbal undertow that gives the middle of the drink structure, doing roughly what a dash of bitters does elsewhere: correcting the sweetness without announcing itself. The official build leaves it out and asks the gin to do that work instead, which makes a leaner, more direct drink and is a defensible reading rather than a lazy one.
Both are poured under the name. For the older version, add fifteen millilitres of dry vermouth and shake it with everything else; nothing about the technique changes.
The Spirit
GinA flavour requirement rather than a method. The law asks only that juniper be the predominant taste and that the spirit reach 37.5%, which leaves everything else on the botanical bill to the distiller and permits a gin that was never redistilled at all.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is raw egg white in a cocktail safe?
With fresh, properly stored eggs the risk is very low, and the alcohol and citrus in the shaker are hostile territory for bacteria besides. Anyone who would rather skip it can use aquafaba at about two tablespoons per drink, which foams almost identically and behaves the same way.
Should there be dry vermouth in it?
The official build has none and the pre-Prohibition specifications do. Fifteen millilitres adds a dry, herbal undertow that stops the raspberry and lemon collapsing into fruit squash, giving the middle of the drink structure without announcing itself. Add it if you want the older reading.
Can I use fresh raspberries instead of syrup?
Muddled berries with simple syrup work at need, but the drink turns pulpy and inconsistent, because a punnet varies far more than a syrup does. The overnight cold-process syrup gives the clean, vivid berry line the classic depends on, and it strains clear.
Master the Techniques
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Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits
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