It’s the start of Thanksgiving week, the perfect time to experiment with something new, enjoy some classics and figure out what my holiday cocktail will be.

I found a recipe for a Lemon Flip that looked intriguing and a bit intimidating. I’ve avoided recipes with egg whites in the past because I always see salmonella in my immediate future. This time I was feeling emboldened, so I decided to give it a whirl. And a whirl I did.

In addition to the egg white, the drink calls for ginger liqueur, lemon juice, lemon curd and bourbon of course. Ginger liqueur? Who knew that was a thing? I was all in after I read the word ginger. Off I go to find it, excited by the possibilities beyond the Lemon Flip. My local store has two brands of ginger liqueur and since I’m just discovering this exists, I go for the smaller bottle. I also picked up another bottle of @BasilHayden, because why not?

The drink is easy to make. I used fresh lemon juice; so that was the only component that took time. Otherwise it was quick to assemble. Because of the egg white, I don’t recommend this as a batch cocktail.

In a word – yummy.

The egg white gives the drink a silky mouth feel. It’s good but not nearly as big as I thought it would be with the fresh lemon juice and lemon curd. The lemon curd adds a creaminess that moves this beyond a lemon drop martini made with bourbon, to an elegant cocktail that is at once complex and simple.

But…

I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t riff on a recipe.

The Lemon Flop: one word – delicious.

My version amps up the lemon flavor without making your lips pucker and I didn’t use egg whites. There’s a good balance between the lemon and the bourbon that I attribute to the ginger liqueur. The ginger flavor is subtle. You know something is there; but it’s faint. More like a whisper.

Even though lemon drinks make me think of summer, this drink will become a year round staple. Try it, I promise, you’ll like it.

Recipe

Cheers,
~Kimberly Elise

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