Natural Wine (Part I)

Combine all these ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice, shake vigorously for 20-30 seconds. Really give that egg a chance to get beaten up inside the shaker. Then double strain into a rocks glass over ice and garnish with freshly grated nutmeg.

This cocktail makes its first written appearance in Jerry Thomas’s famous bartender’s manual, published in 1887, and he was also aware of the irony in its name, but speculated that its color was like that of coffee when you pour it into the glass.

If the name still irks you, go ahead and call it a brandy/port flip because that’s what it is. You’ve got the brandy and port in kind of an upside down Manhattan ratio, where there’s twice as much fortified wine as there is spirits, and then you throw in the simple syrup for sweetness and the whole egg for lots of creamy, rich texture. That’s about as classic a flip recipe as you’ll ever encounter, so feel free to riff on it during your next gathering. With the holidays coming up, this might be something you try out on your friends and family.

Show Notes

During this interview, we taste through a couple of really interesting natural wines. The first is a project called “Franc Fizz,” which is comprised of 90% 2017 vintage Cabernet Franc wine, which is then supplemented by 10% Marquette grape juice. This added sugar and influx of naturally occurring yeast results in a secondary in-bottle fermentation that leaves the wine lightly sparkling and deliciously tangy and effervescent.

The second wine we taste is an orange wine called “Seeds & Skins,” which is a pinot gris (AKA pinot grigio) wine that rests on the skins for two days before they are separated. The result is a light expression of orange wine, which can be extremely tannic after much longer skin contact macerations.