The history of the Clover Club Cocktail

The Gilded Age began in America in the 1870s. This economic boom was characterized by a new class of ultra-rich people. This rapid growth in private capital among many people led to the formation of elite clubs made up exclusively of men.

During this period, another such elite club was founded in Philadelphia at the Bellevue Stratford Hotel, which was soon named the Clover Club. It was in this establishment that the Clover Club cocktail developed, which was primarily enjoyed by members of the club. It is not known exactly when and by whom the Clover Club cocktail was invented.

Its earliest appearance in a cocktail book as “The Clover Club Cocktail” was in Raymond E. Sullivan’s “The Bartender’s Manual” in 1910. Originally, the drink consisted of gin, lemon juice, granulated sugar, raspberry syrup and an egg white. It was popularized by the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York and remained popular during Prohibition. After Prohibition, its popularity faded, but like many other classic cocktails, it found a new audience after being featured in David Wondrich’s cocktail book “Imbibe”.

WHICH GIN FOR THE CLOVER CLUB COCKTAIL?

As with all classic gin cocktail recipes, using a London Dry Gin is always the safe way to go. My results with Sipsmith London Dry Gin, The Botanist Gin or No. 3 Gin are all very good. If you want to experiment more, you should take a closer look at Le Gin de Christian Drouin Carmina. It has two special features that immediately caught my attention…

The distillery of Christian Drouin, based in France, is known for its excellent Calvados. Calvados is a regionally matured apple brandy from Normandy. For the company’s own gin, this means that the base alcohol is also obtained from cider. This so-called cider is distilled from 30 different varieties of cider apple from Drouin’s apple orchards. In addition to the typical gin botanicals, raspberries and redcurrants are also distilled in the “Carmina” special edition. These give Le Gin Carmina a tart, fruity profile, which integrates very well into a Clover Club cocktail.

THE RASPBERRY IN THE CLOVER CLUB COCKTAIL

There are different ways of adding natural raspberry flavors to the Clover Club cocktail. One of them is to put 3 to 5 raspberries in the shaker in advance, muddle them and then add normal sugar cane syrup. This is great, but always makes an incredible mess in the shaker. We also want to enjoy our delicious Clover Club cocktail outside of the raspberry season. This is where the use of high-quality raspberry syrup makes sense.

You can make your own syrup. But there are also two brands that produce really good raspberry syrup. Voelkel and Darbo may not be the cheapest, but they taste and look homemade.

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