Anyone else forgotten this drink?

If the Silver Fizz and the Tom Collins were bottles of champagne, the Silver Fizz would be enjoyed like Larmandier-Bernier over 90 pages of Thoreau, and the Tom Collins would be guzzled by starfucking bromides over 90 expressions of intoxicated barfly non-sequitur. (That was the single most snobby sentence I've ever written.)

The Silver Fizz is everything I love in a sour. Tart, sweet, rich, simple to prepare, and available to the masses. Fizz drinks are probably the result of the early-1900s induction of soda water into the classic sours of the late-1800s. Although this drink's daddy, the Gin Fizz, is often thought to be the same thing as a Tom Collins, it's not. The Tom Collins was originally made with Old Tom Gin, which was sweetened itself, and changes the drink entirely. In the 50s and 60s, beverage producers started marketing Collins Mix, and the drink was made with the increasingly popular London Dry style of gin... When a drink gets a mixer named after it, it's over in my book.

Many fizz cocktails of the early soda water craze were shaken and served up, but I like mine over a glassful of cracked ice. Here's how I made the one pictured above, currently menued at Red Feather:

Silver Gin Fizz
2 oz. Tanqueray
1 oz. Fresh lemon juice
.5 oz Simple Syrup
1 Egg white
Shake until your shoulder joints lock in protest. Strain over new ice. Top with soda.


Sort of moving around, I recently read an article about a drink called the Heirloom Tomato Mojito. In the begining, I was optimistic. It's late summer, I thought, heirlooms are here and delicious... I'm floating in clouds of optimism over this cocktail.

Reading through the recipe was sort of like falling back toward the Earth, head-first. I crash down at the word tequila, and settle into the dirt at basil. Shaking off the fall, I remember that Mojitos are best, (and actual,) with rum and mint, and that sometimes we screw with drinks a little too much. I love aged balsamic vinegar, but not on top of my mojito. The Silver Fizz is another reminder along these lines. This drink is a great model and should replace any contemporary sour or fizz on any menu at least once or twice a season... because it's the best how it is.

The inspiration is simple: Find something forgotten and try it. If it sucks, we know why it was forgotten. If it's great, bring it back to life!