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Try the classic Clover Club cocktail! It’s tangy and bright pink, with raspberry or grenadine syrup, gin, and an egg white foam on top.
Here’s a sophisticated classic cocktail that steals the show: the Clover Club! This bright pink drink stems back before Prohibition, but it’s just as en vogue today. Sweet raspberry or grenadine syrup combine with zingy lemon and gin to make a perfectly balanced sweet tart drink.
The best part: a classic egg white foam gives a creamy body and frothy texture to each sip! This one’s a unique gin cocktail that’s just plain fun.
Ingredients in a Clover Club cocktail
The Clover Club cocktail is a tangy gin sour cocktail that was first recorded in print in 1908. It was named after a gentleman’s club in Philadelphia called the Clover Club, which included prominent lawyers, writers, and politicians. Later the drink fell out of fashion, but it’s come back in style today with the revival of classic cocktails!
Interestingly, the drink was originally made with grenadine syrup, but today is made with raspberry syrup. The ingredients in a Clover Club cocktail are:
- Gin
- Raspberry syrup or grenadine
- Lemon juice
- Egg white
How to make raspberry syrup
By 1917, recipes for the Clover Club started to include raspberry syrup, though the drink was originally made with grenadine. You can buy it at a liquor store or online, but it’s more fun (and tastes better) to make it at home! Here are the basic steps to homemade raspberry syrup:
- Place 1 cup sugar and ½ cup water in a saucepan over medium heat. Cook about 1 minute until the sugar dissolves.
- Add ½ cup raspberries and cook until the berries break down, about 5 to 6 minutes, turning the heat to low when it starts to boil. Break down the berries with a spatula as needed. Once fully liquid, strain into a jar using a fine mesh sieve and a spatula. Allow to cool and store refrigerated for up to 3 weeks.
Tip: Try raspberry syrup in more raspberry cocktails like the Raspberry Martini, Raspberry Lime Rickey, and Floradora.
How to make a Clover Club cocktail (basic steps)
Once you’ve decided on grenadine vs raspberry syrup, making a Clover Club cocktail is a breeze! Here are the basic steps (or jump to the recipe):
- Dry shake: Place all ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Shake for 15 seconds without ice.
- Shake: Add ice to the cocktail shaker and shake again for 30 seconds.
- Strain: Strain into a glass and garnish. Voila!
Alternative: make it with grenadine
Cocktail connoisseurs may tell you that it’s not a Clover Club unless it’s made with raspberry syrup. But in our research, we found a recipe for the Clover Club printed in the Pittsburgh Press in 1909* that included an egg white, lemon, lime, gin, sugar, and “a pony of grenadine.” It’s easy to find at the grocery or liquor stores, which makes it a nice alternative for the Clover Club. A few things about grenadine:
- It’s made with pomegranate. Grenadine is a sweet tart syrup used in cocktails that’s bright red in color. Many people think it’s cherry flavored, but it’s actually made from pomegranate.
- You can make it at home. This homemade grenadine is easy to make an has none of the artificial colors and additives.
- It’s used in other popular cocktails. It’s most famously used in grenadine cocktails like the Shirley Temple, Singapore Sling, and Tequila Sunrise.
*Per The Last Night on the Titanic by Veronica Hinke
The magic of a dry shake
Bartenders have added egg whites to cocktails since the 1860’s, because they add a frothy texture and a creamy rich flavor. The best frothy egg white form is achieved by doing what’s called a dry shake. You’ll use this in lots of classic cocktail recipes with egg whites like the Gin Fizz, Amaretto Sour, and Boston Sour. Here’s how it works:
- The first shake without ice lets the protein in the egg begin to form foam, instead of being diluted by the ice.
- The second shake with ice cools the drink and strengthens the foam. Strain it into the glass and you’ll get a thick, white frothy layer.
Best gin for a Clover Club
The general rule for gin cocktails: the better the gin, the better the drink. We recommend investing in a mid-price range gin: the drink will only taste as good as the liquor you invest in. Here are a few tips for choosing a brand of gin:
- Malfy, Aviation, and Beefeater London Dry have a developed, botanical flavor that blends well in cocktails.
- Locally distilled gin is a great option. In Indianapolis, we like 8th Day Distillery, Hotel Tango, and Hi & Mighty Gin.
- Steer clear of strong-flavored sipping gins in cocktails. For us this includes brands like Tanqueray gin (very floral) and Opihr gin (spice-forward). These types of gin can overpower the delicate flavors in the Clover Club.
Clover Club Cocktail
Try the classic Clover Club cocktail! It’s tangy and bright pink, with raspberry or grenadine syrup, gin, and an egg white foam on top.
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 1 drink 1x
- Category: Drink
- Method: Shaken
- Cuisine: Cocktails
- Diet: Vegetarian
Ingredients
- 3 ounces (6 tablespoons) gin
- ¾ ounce (1 ½ tablespoon) raspberry syrup or grenadine syrup (purchased or homemade)
- 1 ounce (2 tablespoons) fresh lemon juice
- 1 egg white*
- For the garnish: lemon twist, fresh raspberries (optional)
Instructions
- Add the gin, raspberry syrup or grenadine, lemon juice, and egg white to a cocktail shaker without ice. Shake for 15 seconds.
- Add the ice to the cocktail shaker. Shake again for 30 seconds.
- Strain the drink into a cocktail glass; the foam will collect at the top. Garnish with a lemon twist or fresh raspberries.
Notes
*Substitute 2 tablespoons aquafaba (liquid from a can of chickpeas) for a vegan variation.
More sour cocktails
The Clover Club is a sour cocktail: one in the family of drinks that combine liquor, citrus, and sweetener. Here are a few more related sour cocktails:
- The Clover Club is similar to a Gin Fizz and Tom Collins; both use lemon, gin and an egg white. The Bees Knees is also similar.
- The Tequila Sour, Vodka Sour, Pisco Sour or Gin Sour are all drinks that mix lemon, liquor and an egg white foam.
- The Sidecar is one of the best classic cocktails of all time: the perfect balance of Cognac, Cointreau and lemon.
- A spin on the Sidecar, the classic Margarita recipe is the most popular tequila cocktail of all time.
3 oz! Yikes, how to modify if you don’t want a triple?
I would just split between two drinks, since it uses 1 egg white.
This is a great drink and the recipe is very good, but with homemade raspberry syrup with a 2 sugar to 1 ratio of sugar to water I only needed 1/2 oz of the syrup. Otherwise I think it would have been awfully sweet for my palate.
How do yall get the vibrant red in the photo? Mine looks gorgeous with the egg white/aquafaba foam BUT it is more of a muted pink than that deep reddish pink. Is it from the grenadine? I use your raspberry simple recipe instead of homemade/store-bought grenadine.
BUT the cocktail is very well balanced. I really like it both ways. Although if you make it with grenadine it has a very sweet cotton candy flavor, with a more intense finish. I feel like raspberry syrup is the way to go. The syrup is a lot less sweet than most grenadines you’ll find store bought (*COUGH* ROSES) but the tartness of the lemon juice and raspberry really hide the bite of the gin, which may be a bad thing if you like your drinks a bit more spirit forward, but it makes for a drink that is DANGEROUSLY easy to drink. Gonna have to try it with homemade grenadine! Maybe that’s what will give it a more vibrant reddish pink color?
Yes purchased grenadine makes for the brightest colored drink! Our homemade grenadine recipe has a pretty good color — we found that using pomegranate seeds instead of homemade juice makes the best color. We agree that many purchased grenadines are so syrupy sweet! But of course the artificial colors make a very vibrant drink. Let us know if you try our homemade grenadine :)