Sherry Sour

Nutty amontillado sherry shaken with bright lemon juice and a silky egg white foam. A Spanish-inflected sour that balances dry complexity with citrus lift.

The Sherry Sour applies the sour template to amontillado sherry, producing a cocktail that draws on Andalusia's most historically complex fortified wine style in the citrus-and-sweetener framework that Jerry Thomas codified in his 1862 Bar-Tenders Guide. Amontillado is a style of sherry that begins as fino — aged under a layer of flor yeast in Sanlúcar de Barrameda or Jerez de la Frontera — before the flor dies and the wine continues aging oxidatively in contact with air. The result is a sherry with unusual dual character: the aldehydic, chamomile, and almond notes of fino aging combined with the caramel, hazelnuts, and dried fruit of oxidative aging. Sherry production in the Jerez region of Andalusia has been documented since at least the 8th century, when Arab geographers noted wine cultivation in the province, and the commercial export trade to Britain and the Netherlands developed through the 15th and 16th centuries. The Sherry Sour's combination of amontillado's nutty oxidative complexity with fresh lemon juice and a small amount of sweetener produces a drink of considerable depth that goes beyond what fruit-based spirit sours typically achieve, and the low ABV of sherry (typically 17-19%) makes the format accessible to drinkers seeking less intensely alcoholic preparations.