Like many members of the sour family such as the Pisco Sour, White Lady, and the classic Whiskey Sour, this one uses the white of an egg to create a rich foamy top. You can leave it our if you prefer, but the texture of your drink will be quite different.
The Amaretto Sour, despite its name, is very sweet. If you find it a bit much, try reducing the Amaretto to 45ml and adding 15ml of Bourbon Whiskey. That should do the trick.
Most cocktails need to be either shaken or stirred before serving, and call for the mixture to be strained into a glass. Two different types of strainers are used, depending on how the drink was prepared. If you’re using a cocktail shaker, you should use a Hawthorn strainer. This is the one with a spring around the rim of a flat metal disk. It is designed to rest on the lip of your cocktail shaker and effectively catches any pieces of ice or fruit before the liquid is transferred to your glass.
If your drink has been stirred in a mixing glass, you’d use a Julep strainer. This is basically a little sieve and looks like a spoon with holes in the bottom. It fits more easily on a mixing glass than a Hawthorn strainer, and was used by drinkers in the antebellum south to separate their Mint Juleps from their facial hair.
Here’s the recipe for an Amaretto Sour:
Ingredients
- 60ml Amaretto
- 30ml Lemon juice
- 15ml Sugar syrup
- 1 Egg white
- Dash of Aromatic bitters
- Maraschino cherry to garnish
Preparation
- Put the egg white in an empty cocktail shaker and shake vigorously until it is completely frothy
- Fill the shaker with ice
- Add all ingredients except the bitters
- Shake vigorously
- Strain into an old-fashioned glass filled with ice
- Add a dash of bitters to the centre of the foam
- Garnish with a maraschino cherry
Equipment
- Cocktail shaker
- Ice
- Old fashioned glass
