Widow’s Kiss Project: The Flip Flap
Today we visit another one of Leo Engel’s “specialties.” Perhaps you remember the Girard Flip from his American and Other Drinks (1878) Crazy ol’ Leo advises us to
Fill up a sherry wine glass two-thirds full of Maraschino, yellow Chartreuse, Kummel in equal proportions, and one dash of Kirschenwasser. Having done this, add the white of an egg with a little sugar. Shake or swizzle well in a tumbler and serve in a thin glass.
So for those of you playing along at home, that’s cherry pit liqueur, cherry brandy, sweet herbal Chartreuse, and kummel, aka rye bread in a glass. I had zero hope for this odd fellow. My recipe looked like this:
.5 oz yellow Chartreuse
.5 oz Luxardo maraschino
.5 oz Gilka kummel
1 tsp Trimbach kirsch
Shaken with an egg white (sorry Leo, I couldn’t bring myself to add more sugar to this toothache in a glass.)
The weird thing is…this wasn’t so bad. Really! I mean, yes, it’s sweet. Yes, the egg with no sour/bitter gives it a weird, milkshakey sort of texture. You’d definitely want to make it small and drink it cold, perhaps as a nightcap. But I do think there’s something to the marachino/kirsch/kummel/Chartreuse combo. The herbal spicy notes in the kummel and Chartreuse brought out a funkiness in the maraschino and kirsch that I really liked—it was sort of nutty and almost citrusy, with a pleasant softness to it.
Plus given that the maraschino is the only ingredient under proof, and in fact the kirsch clocked in at 90 proof, the Flip Flap is not nearly as innocuous as it seems. I gotta say, reformulated with something to cut the sweetness a little, perhaps some gin and an acid, you could end up with a complex, awesomely weird little cocktail.
The Verdict:
B: Oddly compelling. Definitely going into occasional rotation.
