Welcome to Boxes and Booze, the start of something interesting …

What to pair with this crafty little puzzle?  Obviously, a craft cocktail with egg in it.  If that sounds less than delicious, you might need to put down the vodka tonic and pull up a chair.  Eggs or egg whites have been used in cocktails since at least the mid 1800’s.  The egg white in particular adds a rich texture and a pleasing “mouthfeel” to the drink, as well as an elegant foamy froth over the surface, which can’t be achieved in other ways.  If I haven’t gotten your attention now with “mouthfeel” and foamy froth, you might be hopeless.  There are so many great cocktails with egg white as an ingredient, it was hard to pick just one.  First I thought about the Clover Club, which is a pre-prohibition classic dating to the late 1800’s and named for the Philadelphia men’s club which met in the Bellevue-Stratford hotel.  It’s a combination of gin, lemon juice, raspberry syrup and egg white.  It’s simple, refreshingly tart and lightly sweet, and has a light pink color due to the raspberry syrup, which makes it a nice match up for the Egg puzzle (also pink).  It’s easy to make and might put you in a better mood once you start to get frustrated with the puzzle.  There are some high quality small batch syrups on the market (for example, small hand foods pictured here), but the best is to make your own, which is super easy and makes the kitchen smell great. 

The Clover Club Cocktail

While the Clover Club is a great cocktail, which I highly recommend you try making at home, I felt it wasn't complicated enough for this particular puzzle, which appears simple enough but is deviously difficult.  Therefore, the cocktail that I have paired with this puzzle is the “Sueno”, created by Raul Ystorza at his Los Angeles mezcal bar, Las Perlas.  The Sueno strikes a lovely balance between smoky, spiced, herbal and sweet.  It  combines a lightly smoky blanco mezcal with meyer lemon juice, five-spice honey syrup (cardamom, start anise, fennel, clove and cinnamon), balsamic vinegar syrup, a fresh strawberry, basil leaves, rosemary needles, and of course, a fresh egg white.  There is a lot of prep involved here.  The balsamic vinegar syrup does not, in my opinion, make the kitchen smell great.  The five spice honey syrup is also tricky, and hot honey does some serious damage to your fingers.

5 spice honey syrup in the making - watch your fingers ...

This is a very complicated drink.  But when you try it, it tastes smooth and sultry and alluring and fills your mouth with a delicious intensity which begs for another sip.  You would be hard pressed to imagine what is actually going on inside that glass, but you suspect it’s a lot.  Reminds me of a puzzle I know.

Sueno by Raul Ystorza

2 oz mezcal blanco

1/2 oz five spice honey syrup

2/4 oz Meyer lemon

1/4 oz egg white

2 barspoons balsamic vinegar syrup

1 strawberry

fresh basil leaves, fresh rosemary

2 d Fee Bros. Whiskey Barrel bitters

Muddle strawberry, basil, rosemary, balsamic syrup, honey syrup and bitters. Add lemon juice, egg white, mezcal and shake with ice. Rosemary sprig garnish.