A dry shake is a shake without ice, done before the normal shake, and it is how an egg-white sour gets its thick, white, standing foam. The Whiskey Sour, the Pisco Sour, the Clover Club, the Ramos Gin Fizz and the Amaretto Sour all depend on it, and it is a two-minute technique that separates a silky sour from a thin one.

What is a dry shake?

Egg white foams when it is beaten with air, but ice in the shaker both chills it and cuts the foam as it forms; a drink shaken once with ice comes out with a thin, loose head. The dry shake solves this by shaking the ingredients and the egg white hard for ten seconds with no ice at all, which whips the protein into a dense foam, and then adding ice and shaking again to chill and dilute. The result is a foam that stands a finger thick above the drink and holds long enough to drop bitters on. The "reverse dry shake" does the same in the opposite order — shake with ice, strain the ice out, shake again dry — and produces an even denser foam, at the cost of a slightly warmer drink. Aquafaba, the liquid from a can of chickpeas, foams the same way and is the vegan substitute. The technique is a twentieth-century refinement; nineteenth-century bartenders simply shook longer.

How to do it

Measure the spirit, citrus, syrup and egg white (about an ounce, one egg) into the small tin of a Boston shaker. Seal it with the large tin and shake hard for ten seconds without ice; the shaker will feel light and the liquid will go pale and frothy. Open it — the seal can be stubborn because the foam holds a vacuum; press the spring of a Hawthorne strainer into the tin for a few seconds first and the seal will give — add ice, reseal and shake hard for another twelve seconds. Double strain into a chilled coupe, holding the fine strainer high so the foam passes through, and let the drink settle for thirty seconds before garnishing: three drops of Angostura on the foam, dragged with a toothpick, is the classic finish. For a Ramos Gin Fizz, the dry shake is followed by a long shake with ice and then a slow top of soda.

Common mistakes

Skipping the dry shake and shaking once with ice gives a thin, bubbly head that collapses in a minute. Shaking the dry shake too briefly gives the same result; ten full seconds. An old egg foams poorly; use a fresh one, and separate it cleanly, since yolk kills the foam. A cobbler shaker's spring makes a weaker foam than a Boston; the Hawthorne spring dropped into the tin for the dry shake (the "spring shake") makes a stronger one. Straining through a fine mesh too low in the glass breaks the foam; hold it high. And serving an egg-white drink over ice, or waiting more than a few minutes, loses the foam that was the whole point.

Drinks that use it

The egg-white sours: the Whiskey Sour, the Pisco Sour, the Amaretto Sour, the Gin Sour and the Aperol Sour. The pink sours: the Clover Club and the Pink Lady. The fizzes: the Ramos Gin Fizz. The flips and nogs: Eggnog and the Brandy Flip. The modern egg-white drinks: the Campari Sour, the Hibiscus Gin Sour and the Matcha Gin Sour. Every dry-shaken drink on the site is listed below.

Questions

Is raw egg white safe? Fresh eggs carry very little risk; pasteurised eggs or aquafaba remove it.

Dry shake or reverse dry shake? Either; the reverse gives a denser foam, the standard a colder drink.

Why won't my shaker open? The foam holds a vacuum; press the strainer spring into the tin to release it.

Does egg white change the taste? No; it adds texture and softens the acid, nothing more.