It may not be as famous as the Martini or the Daiquiri, but the White Lady is a real treasure from the golden era of cocktails. Calling for just two bottles, it’s a drink of great elegance and simplicity – filled with charm and old-school glamour.
The first White Lady landed on the bar in 1919, served by Scottish cocktail pioneer Harry MacElhone to a guest of the ultra-fashionable Ciro’s Club. The restaurant and drinking den on London’s Orange Street traded for only a short time before being shut down for being too fun (and violating its license) but it was an important proving ground for MacElhone. The White Lady on the menu there was a prototype which, according to the head boy of booze history David Wondrich, contained crème de menthe and no gin.
Any drink that’s all liqueur is bound to be oversweet and generally unwholesome so this early version is best left in the past. Thankfully, our man had perfected the formula by the time he opened his own spot in Paris the following decade – the extravagantly named Harry’s New York Bar. It was there that the modern White Lady made her debut, a chemically perfect variant on the classic Gin Daisy made with London Dry, Cointreau, lemon juice and egg white.
It’s one of the spare instances in the indispensable Savoy Cocktail Book where a brand is called for by name. Coming in at a respectable 40% ABV, Cointreau (£16, Waitrose) has the necessary heft to properly carry the essential oils present in the peels of bitter and sweet oranges. It’s been a staple of the bar world since the mid-19th century and still towers over other orange liqueurs.
Ingredients
35ml Dry Gin
25ml Cointreau
25ml Lemon juice
Egg white
For the gin, you’ll want something juniper-forward with a bit of backbone. Your Tanquerays and Beefeaters will perform admirably in the role, as they always do. However, if you want something a bit more complicated The Botanist (£35.25, The Whisky Exchange) from the pronunciation-defying Bruichladdich distillery on Islay is ideal. Its core of foraged native botanicals contributes floral and herbaceous notes that sit perfectly alongside the earthy juniper.
Anyone who favours the out-of-fashion but still very tasty gin and orange juice will be aware of this classic flavour pairing. The berries and herbal botanicals speak to the zest and subtle spice in the Cointreau, while the lemon adds lift and the egg white blurs the lines between the ingredients. Well played, Mr MacElhone.
It’s a combination favoured by Cointreau master distiller Carole Quinton, whose face lights up when the White Lady is mentioned. ‘What I like is that In Cointreau you have these vegetal notes, a bit of cucumber,’ she tells us. ‘In The Botanist you have those peppery notes and more vegetal notes from the flowers and plants from the Island. For me, the freshness, the citrus notes, the vegetal notes all balance the sweetness of Cointreau.’
‘What it is important in a drink is equilibrium, you have to have balance between acidity and sweetness. This balance will make the aromas explode. For the White Lady, I feel like the acidity of lemon juice and with the sweetness delivers everything.’
Another great advantage of the White Lady is that it’s easy to put together. With your ingredients assembled, and a small amount of forward planning, you can turn out a round for your guests in just a couple of minutes.
Method
Squeeze some lemons ahead of cocktail hour and, if you’ve got the patience for it, pass the juice through a fine strainer. Any bartender will tell you that squeezing citrus to order is an unnecessary faff so it pays to do the advanced prep.
Next, put some cocktail glasses in the freezer to chill down. A cocktail coupe or Nick & Nora makes a nice nod to the White Lady’s 1920s origins, but a Champagne saucer or one of those triangular Martini glasses will work just fine.
Cut a few long, wide strips of orange peel and set them to one side. Combine all your ingredients in a cocktail shaker and dry shake, that’s without ice, to whip up those egg whites. Make sure you keep a good grip on the shaker during this step as it may try to pop open.
You’re now ready to crack the tin, add as much ice as you can, and shake extra hard. When the surface of the shaker is frosted over you can strain into your chilled cocktail glasses. Squeeze the reserved orange peel over the surface of the drink to give it a spritz of citrus oil and discard. Don’t skip this step as the intense aroma and slight bitterness it affords really makes the drink sing.
For a twist you could add a dash of absinthe or omit the egg white but honestly, the White Lady is fine as she is. In an age of baroque cocktails that call for whole shopping lists of components, this is a great argument for simplicity.
All the elements harmonise perfectly with each other. The juniper and herbal botanicals in the gin speak to the orange oil and subtle spicy notes in the Cointreau, while the lemon adds lift and the egg white blurs the lines between the star ingredients.
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