The Clover Club – an accessible, sophisticated cocktail that is fashionably late to the ‘ginaissance’ party
- Once vilified as one of the worst cocktails, the Clover Club has clawed its way back into fashion
- At La Rambla by Catalunya, aquafaba, or ‘water from chickpeas’ is used as an egg white substitute
Of the classic drinks revived by the “ginaissance”, the most prominent have been the dry martini, the G&T and the negroni. The Clover Club has come a little late to the party, but is gaining traction.
Although less well known, this cocktail, too, has passionate aficionados, among them John Nugent. Beverage director of La Rambla by Catalunya, in Central, Nugent believes the combination of accessibility and sophistication, with both fresh fruit flavour and a serious gin kick, make the Clover Club a great introduction to the world of gin cocktails.
“Some find the negroni or the dry martini a little too harsh for their palate,” he says. “The Clover Club has a sweetness and tartness that might be more appealing for people who may be new to cocktails.”
The club to which the drink owes its name no longer exists. It was a social association of influential businessmen who met at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, in Philadelphia, in the United States, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
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“Robert Hess [author of 2008’s The Essential Bartender’s Guide: How to Make Truly Great Cocktails] dated the Clover Club cocktail to 1910,” says Nugent. “It’s one of the classics that got a new lease of life thanks to people like New York bartender Julie Reiner. It’s great to see that come back and be made into a modern classic.”
Reiner is so big a fan of the Clover Club that she named her Brooklyn bar after it. For many years, however, along with its close relation the Pink Lady, the drink was out of fashion – probably because the original recipe called for egg white, which can be messy and problematic for bartenders and which few people are inclined to bother with at home.
In The Ideal Bartender(1917), Thomas Bullock lists the ingredients of the Clover Club as dry gin, raspberry syrup, vermouth and egg white. In the same year, cookery book author Jeanette Young Norton published her own version in Mrs Norton’s Cookbook. It was also called a Clover Club but included the juice of half a lemon and substituted grenadine for the raspberry syrup. This latter version seems closer to a Pink Lady, which is a simple combination of gin, grenadine and egg white and which has the unhappy distinction of having featured in a list published by Esquire Magazine in 1934 of the world’s 10 worst cocktails.
A real Clover Club, Nugent insists, is a far more interesting, subtle proposition, and he has created a Spanish-themed variant for La Rambla’s new terrace bar. His inspiration is the version Reiner created for her Brooklyn bar.
“Reiner puts in a little bit of vermouth, which introduces some dryness to the cocktail nicely. At La Rambla, because it’s Spanish, we use fino sherry, which adds another dimension, and instead of egg white we’re using aquafaba, from chickpeas, which are also used for some of our dishes here.”
Aquafaba is water in which chickpeas have been cooked. The substitution for the egg white, Nugent says, produces a near-identical result. Both liquids are more or less tasteless, but when shaken produce a foam.
Aquafaba is easier to work with. It has no taste at all. Some people find that egg white has a slightly funky smell to it, and there’s none of that
“Some people find that egg white makes that foamy texture a little more rich, but aquafaba is easier to work with. It has no taste at all. Some people find that egg white has a slightly funky smell to it, and there’s none of that,” he explains.
As with all gin cocktails, a good spirit is of the essence, and for La Rambla’s Clover Club, Nugent chose Tanqueray London dry gin. The spirit, which was first distilled in London in 1830, is now produced in Scotland and is popular in the US and Spain.
La Rambla bartenders make their own fresh raspberry syrup, and Nugent has retained the lemon juice element from the Mrs Norton’s Cook-book recipe. It is important to the tartness of the drink that this is freshly squeezed.
For the dry note usually supplied by French dry vermouth, Nugent chose a fino sherry from Bodegas Lustau, which was established in Jerez, Spain, in 1896, and has the distinction of having been voted Best Sherry Producer in both 2014 and 2016 in the International Wine & Spirit Competition.
“It’s one of my favourites on its own, chilled on a hot summer day. We use 45ml of Tanqueray, 15ml of lemon juice, 15ml of sherry, 15ml of raspberry syrup and 15ml of aquafaba,” he says.
Two separate shakes are required – the first “dry”, without ice, to produce the desired foaminess, the second “wet”, with ice, to chill the drink. It is then double-strained into a coupe glass and garnished with a fresh raspberry.
Many versions of the Clover Club, such as the Pink Lady, are fluorescent red in colour, but Nugent’s cocktail is paler.
“Some people are used to a deeper red, but when you serve a Clover Club it should at first have a pinkish hue. If you let it sit, the ingredients begin to separate and it becomes more red, but if it’s red at the outset it means there’s something artificial in there. Probably grenadine or a raspberry liqueur,” he says.
Tart, with a hint of sweetness and with the sherry more prominent in the flavour profile than you might expect from the modest 15ml used, this is a perfect alfresco cocktail for an autumn early evening. Other bars that serve good Clover Clubs include Lily & Bloom, where Nugent previously worked, and Ori-gin, both in Central.
