Million Dollar
Dry shake ∙ 5 min ∙ 21.2% ABV ∙
The Million Dollar is a gin-based shaken sour built with sweet vermouth, pineapple juice, grenadine, and egg white, finished with a silky foam cap. The double shake builds a dense, marshmallowy foam over a plush, faintly fruity body, softening the gin's edge into a smooth, lingering finish.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake all ingredients with ice: London dry gin 60 mlRosso vermouth 30 mlPineapple juice 15 mlGrenadine syrup 10 mlEgg white 15 ml
- Strain back into the shaker
- Dry shake (without ice)
- Fine strain into the chilled glass
- Garnish with a pineapple wedge on the rim
Tips
- Pour the grenadine last before shaking so it doesn't sink and stain the foam unevenly once strained.
- Shake once with ice to chill and dilute, then dry-shake without ice to whip the egg white into a fuller, longer-lasting foam.
- Fine-strain into a pre-chilled coupe so the foam sits clean on top without ice shards breaking its surface.
History
The Million Dollar Cocktail's origin is disputed among several claimants across early-20th-century East Asia. Some accounts credit bartender Louis Eppinger at the Grand Hotel in Yokohama, Japan, as early as 1894, while others say it was created around 1910 by Ngiam Tong Boon at the Long Bar of Raffles Hotel in Singapore. Charles H. Baker Jr., in his 1939 book The Gentleman's Companion, Volume II, instead traced his recipes to bartenders at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo and the Tor Hotel in Kobe in the 1920s and 1930s.
Cocktail historian David Wondrich has argued against the Singapore, Yokohama, and Tokyo stories, tracing the drink instead to the Shanghai Club, a British men's club in Shanghai founded in 1861. The earliest known printed recipe he identifies appeared in 1922, contributed by Manila lawyer J. A. Wolfson to Elsie Gaches's cookbook Good Cooking and Health in the Tropics, published that year in Manila. By the early 1920s the drink was already circulating widely in newspapers and bars across East Asia, and its exact birthplace had become impossible to pin down with certainty.
FAQ
What is in a Million Dollar cocktail?
A Million Dollar cocktail is London dry gin, sweet (Rosso) vermouth, pineapple juice, grenadine syrup, and egg white, double-shaken and fine-strained into a chilled coupe. The egg white is shaken twice, once with ice and once without, to build the drink's signature silky foam.
What is a million dollar drink?
A Million Dollar drink is a gin-based sour with a foamy, egg-white top, double-shaken and fine-strained into a coupe glass and finished with a pineapple wedge; it comes in at about 21.2% ABV.
