Drink of the Week: The Waldorf Gloom Lifter

The Waldorf Gloom Lifter.Last week found me possibly a dollar short and definitely a day late for St. Patrick’s Day, but at least the drink was good. The Gloom Lifter was essentially a whiskey sour with egg white, made with Irish whiskey rather than the more cocktail-typical North American varieties. Now, we have the Gloom Lifter’s more upscale cousin, the Waldorf Gloom Lifter, which is essentially a Clover Club with Irish whiskey and a bit of brandy standing in for gin.

If you want to find the original source of today’s drink, you’ll have to pick up a copy of “The Old Waldorf Astoria Bar Book,” a book dating back to the pre-Prohibition era which I don’t currently own. The recipe, however, is floating around the Internet in a number of iterations, now including this one.

If you found the Gloom Lifter a bit on the dry/overly simple side, this is a drink for you. It’s also a drink I’m willing to bet you might have a hard time getting at today’s historic and pricey Waldorf Astoria in Manhattan, as it’s not on any of their online menus. If you did, it would likely cost you about $20.00, plus tip. Lucky us, you can make this one at home for probably less than a buck and enjoy a bit of bygone elegance on the cheap.

The Waldorf Gloom Lifter

1 1/2 ounces Irish whiskey
1/2 ounce brandy
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/2 egg white (1 ounce of packaged egg white)
1/2 ounce grenadine or raspberry syrup

This one has egg white again, so the drill is pretty much the same as always. Combine the liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker without ice for the so-called dry shake. Watch out for the interesting chemical reaction which can cause the top of your shaker to pop off. In any case, if you’re going the safe route and using a pasteurized, packaged egg white — and I’ll note that I haven’t noticed any decline in the quality of the final product whatsoever while doing this — you won’t have to shake it for more than a few seconds for the egg white to be fully emulsified.

Next, add plenty of ice and shake again, vigorously as always, and strain it into one of your larger cocktail glasses. This is a big drink that needs a big glass.

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Drink of the Week: The Gloom Lifter

The Gloom Lifter.David A. Embury opened his epochal “The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks” with these words: “Anyone can make good cocktails.” It’s clear that you don’t need to be a genius to do it, and I have often proven that point through some very non-genius behavior. Most recently, I seem to be unable to read a calendar, because I’ve been congratulating myself that today’s dandy Irish whiskey-based recipe would be just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. It was only when it was much too late that I realized this week’s DOTW post would be appearing on March 18th.

Anyhow, today’s drink does indeed come to us directly from Mr. Embury’s 1948 classic. It’s basically just a very simple take on a Whiskey Sour using Irish whiskey. Still, these very specific proportions seem to suit perhaps the most weirdly underused of all the most popular base spirits.

Indeed, I really don’t see any reason at all why Irish whiskey isn’t used more often. At least to my palette, its always agreeable taste profile is a hair less mellow than Canadian whiskey but definitely gentler and far more easily mixable than Scotch. It definitely works in my personal prescription for any lingering post-St. Paddy’s depression.

The Gloom Lifter

1 1/2 ounces Irish whiskey
1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
1/4 ounce simple syrup or 1 1/4 teaspoons superfine sugar
1/2 ounce egg white (1 ounce of packaged egg white)

Combine all the ingredients in a cocktail shaker without ice. First, shake the ingredients to properly emulsify the egg white, being careful to keep a good seal while you do so; the albumin in egg white can make for a potentially messy chemical reaction on the so-called dry shake. Next, add ice and shake vigorously. Embury tells us that 15 seconds is about the right amount of time for most drinks. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and contemplate how perfect this drink might be on March 17, 2017… which will fall on a Friday, so I’ll presumably be right on time for a change with a holiday-appropriate beverage.

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