Frisco Sour
-
Frisco Sour
Glass:
Serve in a Sour or Martini/Coupette glass
| 1 1⁄4 oz | Bourbon whiskey |
| 3⁄4 oz | Bénédictine D.O.M. liqueur |
| 1⁄2 oz | Lemon juice (freshly squeezed) |
| 1⁄4 oz | Lime juice (freshly squeezed) |
| 1⁄4 oz | Monin Pure Cane Syrup (65.0°brix, equivalent to 2:1 rich syrup) |
| 1⁄2 oz | Egg white (pasteurised) or 3 dashes Fee Brothers Fee Foam cocktail foamer optional |
| 2 drop | Saline solution (20g sea salt to 80g water) or merest pinch of s |
Prepare:
- Select and pre-chill a SOUR OR MARTINI/COUPETTE GLASS.
- Prepare garnish of lemon zest twist and skewered Luxardo Maraschino Cherry.
How to make:
- SHAKE all ingredients with ice and strain back into shaker.
- DRY SHAKE (without ice) to emulsify.
- FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
Garnish:
- EXPRESS lemon zest twist over the cocktail and discard.
- Garnish with skewered maraschino cherry.
Allergens:
Recipe contains the following allergens:
- Egg white (pasteurised) - Eggs
Strength & taste guide:
No alcohol
Medium
Boozy
Sweet
Medium
Dry/sour
Review:
A bourbon-laced Whiskey Sour with monastic herbal notes.
Variant:
Without egg white &/or served straight-up.
History:
The Frisco Sour started life as a mere "Frisco", sans Sour, in vintage tomes including William "Cocktail Bill" Boothby's 1934 The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them, Lucius-Beebe's 1946 The Stock Club Bar Book, and David A. Embury's 1948 The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks.
FRISCO
William Boothby, The World's Drinks And How To Mix Them, 1934
Whisky............... ¾ jigger
Benedictine........ ¼ jigger
Stir well in bar glass with lump of ice, twist lemon peel over top and serve with spoon and ice water chaser.
Frisco Cocktail:
Lucius-Beebe, The Stock Club Bar Book, 1946
2 oz bourbon
¾ oz Benedictine
twist of lemon peel
Stir and serve in 3oz. cocktail glass.
FRISCO
David A. Embury, The Fine Art of Mixing Drinks, 19448
2 parts Benedictine
1 part Lemon Juice
6 parts Whisky
Shake or stir with cracked ice. In some recipes the lemon juice is omitted.
The original Frisco is a tad sweet and is much improved with a dash or two of orange bitters to bolster the lemon oils from the twist. This obviously led a bartender somewhere to add citrus juice. In Stanley M. Jones' 1977 Jones' Complete BarGuide, he lists the above Frisco followed by a sour version.
FRISCO
Stanley M. Jones, Jones' Complete BarGuide, 1977
Cocktail Glass Stir
2 oz Bourbon
½ oz Benedictine
Lemon twist
FRISCO SOUR
Sour glass Shake
½ oz lemon juice
¼ oz lime juice
¾ oz Benedictine
1-¼ oz whiskey
¼ tsp sugar
Lemon wedge, lime wheel
Once this cocktail morphed into a sour, the addition of egg white was a natural progression, which I believe came in the 1990s, when this was a popular cocktail in London's bar scene. That's when I first encountered the Frisco Sour, then served on-the-rocks. However, it also works well, as per Jones' recipe, strained into a stemmed sour glass or coupe.
Nutrition:
One serving of Frisco Sour contains 202 calories
Alcohol content:
- 1.4 standard drinks
- 18.11% alc./vol. (36.22° proof)
- 19 grams of pure alcohol
- More Aperitivo/aperitif cocktails
- More Citrusy cocktails
- More Classic/vintage cocktails
- More Sours (citrus) cocktails
Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.
Previous cocktail
Flip Williams
Next cocktail
Hesitation
Bourbon
Bourbon is as American as the Stars and Stripes, the Grand Canyon, and pumpkin pie, but there are some common misconceptions about what exactly bourbon...
Bitters
Bitters are alcoholic beverages prepared with herbs, spices, roots, fruits and peels infused in alcohol or glycerin. Popular ingredients include gentian...
2 to 1 'rich' sugar syrup versus 1 to 1 'simple' syrup
The balance between sweet and sour is crucial to the majority of cocktails and consistently producing balanced cocktails is made easier when using sugar...
Egg dos and don'ts & using eggs in cocktails
Eggs are essentially reproductive cells from everything from chickens to ducks and quails but here I'm specifically looking at chicken eggs, their characteristics...
20 best Christmas cocktails
Christmas is a time for overindulgence, so these cocktails are rich in every sense of the word. In America, the creamy Eggnog dominates the festive cocktail...
Join the discussion
Showing 9 comments for Frisco Sour.
See discussion in the Forum
As an aside, I've not bothered with dry shaking in the past, but thought I'd give it a try. I use a three-part shaker (probably because I'm a philistine), and dry shaking (actually reverse dry shaking) is thus a bit of a palaver. If you're in the same boat, do yourself a favour and try a dry shake rather than a reverse dry shake (check out the Diffords instructional) - it'll make life much easier.
(I should say I probably also like my sours a tiny bit sweeter than the Diffords recipes)