Name: Derby Fizz
Total time: 4 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 15 ml Lemon juice; 2 barspoon Powdered sugar; 60 ml Scotch whisky; 7.5 ml Orange Curaçao; 15 ml Egg white; 60 ml Soda water

Ingredients

¹⁄₂ fl oz

Lemon juice (freshly squeezed)

2 barspoon

Powdered sugar (white sugar ground in mortar and pestle)

2 fl oz

Blended Scotch whisky

¹⁄₄ fl oz

Ferrand Dry Curaçao liqueur

¹⁄₂ fl oz

Egg white

2 fl oz

Thomas Henry Soda Water

How to make

Glassware

Method:

STIR lemon juice and sugar in base of shaker until sugar is dissolved. Add Scotch and orange curaçao, SHAKE with ice and strain back into shaker. DRY SHAKE (without ice) and slowly pour 2/3rds of the contents of the shaker from a higher than normal height into a chilled empty glass (no ice in glass) while simultaneously pouring soda with your other hand. The cocktail and soda should form a single stream of liquid falling into the glass.

As when pouring a Guinness, to achieve a perfect head on a Derby Fizz, the cocktail should be left to settle for at least a minute before topping off with what remains in the shaker. Ideally, during the settling period, the glass should be placed in a glass froster/fridge/freezer. As the final contents of the shaker are poured into the glass so the head should rise like a soufflé.

Flavour Profile

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

Health & Nutrition

Alcohol content:

We don't have enough information to calculate the alc./vol., but based on known ingredients, this recipe contains at least:

21.3 grams of pure alcohol

Allergens:

Recipe contains the following allergens:

Egg white — Eggs

History

The Derby Fizz is said to first appear in the 1934 Old Mr. Boston Bartender's Guide, but it's not in the pamphlet-like 1934 edition I own. It is one of the cocktails mentioned in the "supplementary list" in the back of William James "Billy" Tarling's 1937 Café Royal Bar Book but alas without a recipe.

Comments & Discussion

Please log in to make a comment

Jim Plante 4y

Great drink, as it stands. You might edit the recipe to say shake the the first 5 ingredients. I believe you forgot to do that after removing the rum. I’m going to try the the Old Mr Boston recipe, thanks Mr Brooke, it sounds interesting also.

Simon Difford Verified User Premium Member 4y

Thanks, Jim. Now corrected to 5 ingredients.

James Brooke Premium Member 4y

The recipe that I found for the Deby Fizz comes from page 57 of Old Mr. Boston Bartenderʼs Guide. Boston: Ben Burk, Inc.. 1934.
and is
15ml freshly squeezed lemon
5 ml superfine sugar
1 egg white
60 ml blended scotch
3 dashes curaçao
Shake the above ingredients with ice then strain into a Collins or highball glass filled with ice and top up with soda water.

Simon Difford Verified User Premium Member 4y

Many thanks, James. I certainly need to revisit this recipe. Please can you email me (simon.difford@diffordsguide.com) a phone pic of your page 57 so I can reproduce the recipe as a quotation on this page for the benefit of others? (Sadly, I don't have access to 1934 Old Mr. Boston.)

James Brooke Premium Member 4y

Hmmm, it seems to me that 3.25 fl oz is a prodigious amount of alcohol for a cocktail, even or especially for an "elongated" fizz. Once you've added ice to the highball there is hardly any room for soda. I'd welcome the thoughts and comments of others, but I split the shaken ingredients between two highball glass filled with ice and topped up with soda and in my opinion this made for a better long drink.