Christmas Day Clementine Sour

A very tasty winter cocktail

Too sweet for us. We followed the recipe as written and added the egg white and it mostly tasted like a creamsicle.

One of the best drinks I’ve ever had. Egg whites are essential, please don’t omit them. Only thing I changed is for the brown sugar syrup I increased the sugar to water ratio from 1:1 to 1.5:1. Slightly thicker syrup and will keep for far longer. Also used dark brown sugar to make it as rich as possible.

Add lemon juice! Solid cocktail!

I love this cocktail, every year, my daughter-in-law and I have it Christmas Eve. We even have cheeky Christmas glasses decorated with christmas wreaths. I do add Contreau, 1/2 oz to brighten the orange flavor.

I’m excited to try this drink. I see many commenters indicate it’s not quite balanced and might be better with lemon. Based on watching several hundred hours of mixology YouTube videos during the pandemic, I think the solution is to use acid-adjusted clementine juice. To make this, you add citric acid to clementine juice to boost the acidity to lemon levels, while retaining the flavor of clementines. I’ve never done it, but it looks easy enough. Instructions are easy to find via Google.

Used Cointreau and a bit less sugar syrup -- it was delicious -

Any advice for batching this? I imagine the egg white would have to be omitted.

Use a good mid tier booze. If you use the egg ( and please do!) dry shake (without ice) for twenty seconds, then add the ice and shake for another ten.

I definitely agree with John- the sweetness will overcome any half decent bourbon so save your money, but don’t skip the egg white! Adding the egg white turns the drink into a ‘flip’ and adds a smooth and savory finish that elevates the drink to a different level.

Very well received at our Christmas Eve party. We tried with mandarin, Meyer lemon, and regular lemon. Consensus: mandarin too sweet, Meyer lemon best taste, lemon made it more like whiskey sour, which was also very good if you like sour.

When I made this, sweet juice+sweet liqueurs+sweet syrup=way too sweet and just not interesting. I added lemon juice: 1/2 oz. made it taste more like a sour, and it was delicious, but the clementine character was less noticeable. 1/4 oz of lemon made it less sour than most sours, still a bit sweet, but kept more of the character of the original drink, and was still delicious. This "sour" needs to be more sour to balance the sweetness.

Oh come on. Elijah Craig 12 is a nice bourbon straight up. But you won't be able to taste the difference between EC any any other of hundreds of cheaper bourbons once you add Luxardo, Clementine and Curacao. I don't spare money when it comes to drinking bourbon. But you won't be able to taste the difference with all these ingredients. I know it says "preferably" but that is a misleading statement as if EC 12 would taste better in this drink than others.