Sherry Flip

classic cocktail

Nov 2

While there may be any number of questionable “Pinball Wizard” cocktails in the world (I found one such libation made with blueberry vodka), I decided to flip the script for this toast and reference the frenetic flappers that make a game of pinball go ballistic. I have featured various “flips” on these virtual pages in the past, so if you’re feeling nostalgic you can flip back in time to those prior potions. Which seems somewhat appropriate, as the flip is a very old concoction, dating all the way back to the 1600s. In its original form, it was an interesting mixture of ale, rum and sugar, shocked by a red hot poker which caramelized the sugar and gave the warming drink a toasty sweetness that must have been just the thing to ease the winter’s chill. Pubgoers in those days sipped at their hot flips and bemoaned the absence of the pinball machine in the corner, which wouldn’t appear for another three hundred years.

In the nineteenth century, the flip morphed into a cold drink which contains an entire egg, quite similar to an eggnog. A fortified spirit such as sherry would have been the main ingredient found in the classic preparation, such as the sherry flip made by Professor Jerry Thomas in How to Mix Drinks, 1887. Flips contained less alcohol than nogs, and as such were perhaps the more refined drink. Oloroso is a balanced style of sherry full of richly spiced fruit flavors and works particularly well in the flip. Try one for a change of pace, a nod to the past, and a decadent treat this season. Cheers!