May 9-New York Sour

The Cadet Honour Code states “A Cadet will not lie, cheat or steal or tolerate anyone who will.” Well we are breaking that code and the entire rules of this challenge with today’s entry. This might confuse some people whjo looked at Difford’s Guide for a clue as to which cocktail I’m doing next as technically I should be talking about the Bloody Mary. But I will be honest when I say that there is only one cocktail I hate with a passion and that is the Bloody Mary itself. So we are going to pretend it doesn’t exist for all intents and purposes of this challenge since I want to actually have fun making cocktails like I usually do. I’m not thje only hater of this cokctail in my family either as I’m confident that if I did include itit would likely be my lowest rated cocktail all summer. Let’s fix that by instead talking about the New York Sour.

Now let’s get into this cocktail. This is no doubt a modern classic as the Netflix show Bar Masters had a whol;e challenge dedicated to it, but I will say this is a weirder modern classic as it includes a red wine float and sometimes an egg white along with said wine. I did it with both as that’s how Difford’s Guide presented it, so who am I to argue? Well I am a bartender and so I will argue with how they presented this drink. No disrespect to Difford’s Guide at all with this section, but part of this blog is to share my opinion on these drinks and here is what I would change. First off do one or the other in terms of the egg white and red wine, it won’t be a New York Sour without the wine but it is more pleasing to the taste if you just make a choice either is good it’s just about if you want the red or blue pill. Second off is the ice. I don’t have a problem doing a New York Sour over ice with just the wine float, in fact that’s how I would suggest serving it. Specifically with a large rock. But if you choose to do an egg white at all, omit the ice all together and serve it up in a chilled coupe glass. This is because myself and patrons I’ve had find that the extra water from the ice along with the egg white makes a slimy texture. I will admit that I don’t know the science behind this phenomenon but in experiments I have done I find no ice to be the better choice with an egg white.

Now I want to talk about some positives about this cocktail since it probably seems like I can’t stand it based purely on that last paragraph alone, I don’t. This is a cocktail that I can definitively say is a great “Sunday Cocktail”. The Italians have a special sauce called Sunday Gravy where you take all your leftover meats from the week and throw it in a bolognese style sauce and I see this cocktail as having that vibe. Imagine this, you just had a Saturday party with friends and have leftovers from entertaining that just happen to include a half a bottle of Red Wine that you don’t want to turn into cooking wine yet. This cocktail is perfect to use that wine and some leftover lemon juice, simple syrup and possibly even bourbon (or any whiskey really). This might seem like there are too many coincidences, but in my household we always have excess wine open. You can even use an off nottle of wine and it will shine in this cocktail. This ios a specific problem that probably only the upper middle class has but as I have grown up in that class it is a problem I faced.

Full Judging Here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1becpHbUvbkAZ0EwCOJQIa-vPZPibvvaOQOgFzSNHjeQ/edit?tab=t.0 . Good Night and Happy Drinking!