Black Forest Flip

German chocolate cake anyone?

Cake? Flip? What the hell am I talking about? Well, what's an essential ingredient in a cake? That's right, eggs! And I'm not talking about just the egg white that you would normally use in a sour or other cocktails to add foam and body. A flip uses the entire egg; yolk and all. Talk about adding body! This is no light summer refresher, but having created it in late spring I can verify that this will conjure up a dark and mysterious Bavarian arboreal grove of moss covered tree trunks with gnomes hiding behind every stump. Okay, whatever, just take the time and effort to make this and you will be rewarded with a drink that tastes remarkably like its namesake cake.

This one started because I had just brought home a bag of fresh black cherries (which I love) and wondered what kind of drink I could/should make? I couldn't find anything that tickled my fancy on the interwebs and my girlfreind Laura said that black cherries made her want black forest cake, and I was up for the challenge.

The cherry part was easy, but what about the cake? It had to have mouthfeel, so it needed body. A lot of body. The kind of body you get from eating a lot of cake. It seemed obvious to use egg, which is the typical way to add body and mouthfeel, but just egg white seemed a bit thin to me and I wasn't in the mood for using milk. Then I remembered the flip. I had made a few different types in the past and no, it's not gross to eat raw eggs. It's actually a great way to coat your stomach before a night of heavy drinking. It prevents a hangover and "stomach issues" commonly associated with overindulgence. So the flip was the answer to the cake part, but as Laura noted the chocolate part can't be sweet because dark German chocolate is more bitter than sweet. So it made no sense to use any kind of chocolate liqueur like Godiva (not that I would ever have that shit in my bar simply on principle). The obvious answer was chocolate bitters! All the drink needed was 3 dashes of chocolate bitters and a dusting of shaved dark chocolate to get that flavor.

Now I had my modifiers I had to go back to basics. What primary spirit should I use? I had a bottle of Leroux cherry brandy, and of course Luxardo and cherry Heering, but they all came with problems. The cherry brandy was the cheap stuff so it had quite a bit of bite to it and wouldn't work as a primary spirit despite it's full 80 proof. The other two are lower ABV liqueurs and too sweet so they wouldn't work as primary spirits either. However, cherry Heering has a good deep dark decadent flavor and is a brandy based liqueur like Grand Marnier and that led me right to cognac as a base primary spirit. I also used to work at a German themed bar so I had a bunch of German inspired liqueurs on hand (except for Rumpleminz which I thankfully had found a way to finish off) and the cinnamon of Goldschlager added the right amount of spice to the mix.

The result? It's like drinking a fucking cake without tasting like cake batter. Not that there's anything wrong with combining drinking with cake batter, but that's another story probably best kept private...

Black Forest Flip

• 1½ oz cognac (VSOP)

• ½ oz Goldschlager cinnamon liqueur

• ½ oz Leroux cherry brandy

• 5 muddled fresh black cherries

• 3 dashes chocolate bitters

• 1 whole egg

• grated dark chocolate and one more fresh cherry as garnish

Muddle cherries with bitters and cherry brandy. Then add the rest, dry shake until foamy. Add ice and shake briefly to chill. Fine strain into coupe. Garnish with fresh cherry and grated dark chocolate.