Ramos Gin Fizz

Gin, cream, egg white, and orange flower water — Henry Ramos's 1888 New Orleans saloon requiring 12 minutes of shaking and relay teams of shaker boys at Mardi Gras.

The Ramos Gin Fizz was created by Henry Charles Ramos, who opened the Imperial Cabinet Saloon on Gravier Street in New Orleans in 1888 and served a gin fizz whose elaboration — egg white, heavy cream, orange flower water, lemon and lime juice, simple syrup, and soda water alongside the gin — required such extended shaking that it transformed the preparation into a production event. Ramos established that the drink required a minimum of twelve minutes of continuous shaking to achieve the properly emulsified, ethereally light foam that defined the finished product. During the peak of the Ramos Gin Fizz's popularity, particularly at Mardi Gras, the Imperial Cabinet Saloon employed teams of shaker boys — young men whose sole job was to shake the drinks, passing each glass down a relay line to successive shakers as their arms tired. Ramos moved his operation to the Stag Hotel saloon in 1907 before Prohibition closed everything in 1920. Louisiana Governor Huey Long was among the drink's most devoted admirers: Long reportedly brought a bartender from the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans to the Hotel New Yorker in Manhattan specifically to demonstrate the proper Ramos Gin Fizz preparation for New York journalists and bartenders. Orange flower water — produced by the steam distillation of bitter orange blossoms, a traditional Middle Eastern and Mediterranean flavoring ingredient — is the component that most distinguishes the Ramos from other cream fizzes.