Recipe brings Halloween twist to traditional flip cocktail

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When Halloween rolls around, it’s not just the partygoers who get dressed up in their most impressive costumes.

If they’re lucky, the beverages will get the same treatment.

We asked Brewery District gastropub Copious if one of its bartenders could come up with something evocative of our favorite fall holiday, and manager Michael Kuch did not disappoint.

The result: the Witch’s Flip, a variant on the classic flip cocktail, which, in addition to liquor, contains sugar, spice and egg. Think a martini with egg white. Silky and smooth in flavor, white and frothy in appearance, this posh flip cocktail resembles that of a witch’s cauldron.

“It’s pretty original,” says Kuch. “The flavor profile hits across all spectrums. It has a good sweetness to it, but it’s not overly sweet … and it’s not overly bitter. It’s really well balanced.”

Kuch was inspired by a nonchalant request for a flip from a customer who was probably – though we can’t be sure – not a witch. At any rate, there’s a very minimal chance it will turn the drinker into a newt, and in the unlikely case that it does, he or she will almost certainly get better.

The flavor profile hits across all spectrums. It has a good sweetness to it, but it’s not overly sweet … and it’s not overly bitter. It’s really well balanced.

“This drink actually originated from a lady asking me … to make her a flip,” says Kuch. “And I just kind of saw what I had and worked with it.”

The drink contains fresh egg white, orange vodka, gin, pear, star anise and house-made simple syrup, which includes freshly sliced vanilla bean. It’s topped off with deep purple Luxardo maraschino cherries.  

“The maraschino cherries are something we are always trying to use in-house,” says Kuch. “They’re brandy-aged cherries, and really rich and delicious.”

Kuch prefers to keep as much of the drink local as possible by using Watershed Four Peel Gin.

The Witch's Flip

Ingredients

  • One egg white
  • Equal parts Four Peel Watershed Gin and Ketel One Oranje Vodka
  • Simple syrup
  • Fresh vanilla bean
  • Pear
  • Star anise

Method

Shake well and pour drink into martini glass.

Drizzle Luxardo maraschino cherry juice on top and let settle.

Top off with two skewered Luxardo maraschino cherries.

Lydia Freudenberg is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.

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