Continental Sour
A sour and berry whiskey cocktail ∙ Dry shake ∙ 5 min ∙ 16% ABV ∙
The Continental Sour is a bourbon sour with lemon juice, sugar syrup, egg white, and optional bitters, finished with a drizzle of tawny port.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake the first 5 ingredients with ice: Bourbon 60 mlLemon juice 30 mlSugar syrup 15 mlAngostura aromatic bitters 1 dash (opt.)Egg white 15 ml
- Strain back into the shaker
- Dry shake (without ice) to emulsify
- Fine strain into the ice-filled glass
- Drizzle Tawny port 10 ml over the surface of the cocktail
Tips
- Shake with ice first, strain out the ice, then shake again without it. This reverse dry shake gives a dense, silky foam that holds the port on top.
History
The Continental Sour is a port-topped riff on the Whiskey Sour. Its name was revived in its own right around 2010 at the Stagger Lee bar in Berlin, where the bartenders swapped the traditional red wine float for port.
The red wine float itself is older. The idea of floating red wine on top of a sour is traced to a Chicago bartender described in an 1883 Chicago Tribune column. In the late 1800s this red-wine-topped sour circulated under several names, among them Continental Sour, Southern Whiskey Sour, Brunswick Sour, and Claret Snap, before settling on its now-familiar name, New York Sour.
