Clover Club

Dry shaking means to shake without ice. This technique enhances the amount of foam you get from using an egg white, which in turn improves the cocktail's texture. If you want to learn more, check out our lesson on the topic.

Raspberry syrup is easy to make. Note that the version we have in our app is made by infusing syrup with raspberries and does not involve heat. This was done to prevent the raspberry syrup from tasting like jam.

If you have any flavored gins laying around, this might be the perfect opportunity to try them in a cocktail. Berry-flavored gins would fit right in, otherwise florally infused gins should also work well.

Some recipes omit the use of dry vermouth, but its inclusion gives the cocktail a greater degree of complexity.

If you don’t have access to fresh or frozen raspberries, older recipes used homemade grenadine. The flavor will be different, but it will still work in this cocktail.

The Clover Club is named after a gentleman's club founded in 1896 in Philadelphia. The club met in the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel and was mostly comprised of journalists.

While we don’t know when or by whom the recipe was created, Michael Killackey, head bartender at NYC’s Waldorf Astoria, referenced it in 1901, so it's at least older than that.

During the early 1900s, a similar cocktail named a Clover Leaf made an appearance in recipe books. The Clover Leaf is essentially the same cocktail, but with a mint leaf or sprig as a garnish.

Even though it became popular at the start of the century, by 1930 it fell out of favor. For reasons unknown, it was also ridiculed in certain publications.

The Gun Club Drink Book by Charles Browne describes it as: "A clover club cocktail is a Philadelphia concoction, maybe one of the jokes indulged in at the Clover Club. It's an awful mixture. [...] This will make three cocktails if there be found three people who want them."

In the 1930s The Home Bartender's Guide it is recommended for "Tuesday Afternoon Sewing Club" and "Crazy-Quilting Parties.”

The Clover Club was resurrected by its appearance in modern cocktail books, including Gary Regan’s Joy of Mixology, and a 2007’s Esquire column by David Wondrich.

Julie Reiner cemented the cocktail’s resurrection in 2008, when she opened a cocktail bar in New York City and named it after the drink.