flip

flip generally refers to one of two drinks bearing this name. An early variation, by origin apparently a sailor’s drink but also popular in colonial North America, was made by mixing ale, spirit, and sweetener in a pitcher, which was heated by immersing into it a red-hot iron rod. A version more commonly consumed in the nineteenth and early twentieth century was served either warm or chilled and made with ale, spirit, sugar, and a whole egg.

Colonial-Era Flip

Flip was first referred to in print in the 1690s, both in England, where it was defined as a “sea drink of small beer and brandy, sweetened and spiced upon occasion,” and in the North American colonies, where it was soon among the most popular of drinks. In the December 1704 issue of the

The days are short, the weather’s cold, By tavern fires tales are told. Some ask for dram when first come in. Others with flip and bounce begin.

Flip’s ingredients were described succinctly by Rev. Jedidiah Morse in 1792 as “rum mixed with small beer, and muscovado sugar,” although any beer and sweetener could be used. Flip was commonly made in a sizable pitcher rather than an individual tankard, making it a social drink consumed with companions and akin to punch. No definitive recipe exists, but it typically would involve a pitcher of beer into which rum and molasses were added. Cider or spruce beer was at times substituted for the ale, and sugar or dried pumpkin replaced the molasses as sweetener. (A workable ratio for recreating the drink is 24 ounces of ale, 8 ounces of rum, and 4 ounces of molasses.) See Black Strap.

The iron used to heat the drinks was called a loggerhead, originally a tool used by shipbuilders to keep tar pliable in cool weather. In taverns, it was heated in a fireplace until it glowed, then plunged into the pitcher. This would cause the contents to foam up noisily and often overflow the container. The red-hot metal altered the flavor by caramelizing the sugars and toasting the grain in the beer. When it is well made, few of the constituent ingredients may be detected individually.

Flip remained popular throughout the eighteenth century. The poet John Trumbull (1750–1831) saw in the “inspiring flip” “the quintessence of public spirit” as a drink that passed “each patriot lip.” Following the American Revolution, ale flip faded in popularity as individually prepared drinks emerged ascendant. Some modern craft bars have concocted variations of flip, including Booker & Dax in Manhattan, which employs an electric loggerhead that heats to 1,500 degrees.

Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Flip

As the colonial-era loggerhead flip passed into memory, another drink referred to as flip arose and persisted throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

This variation of flip is more closely related to eggnog, a tipple that by rights should be extinct but arises from the crypt each holiday season. See Eggnog. The hallmark of the later flip is the inclusion of a whole egg in the mixing. No loggerhead is involved; the drink’s vaunted creaminess was made, as described by bartender Jerry Thomas in 1862, “by repeated pouring back and forth between two vessels.” See loggerhead. Thomas’s recipe for “rum flip” called for ale warmed on a fire, then mixed with beaten eggs, sugar, nutmeg or ginger, and rum. See Thomas, Jeremiah P. “Jerry”.

But this was a transitional drink. The flip’s final form was first documented in 1874, in an otherwise entirely unoriginal drinks book curated by Ed Simmons of French’s Hotel in New York: a whole egg, sugar, and spirits, shaken up with ice and strained into a cocktail or fizz glass. By 1895, George Kappeler’s Modern American Drinks could do away with the warmed flip altogether, listing instead a dozen flip recipes, all iced. See Kappeler, George J.

The latter-day flip saw some revival after Prohibition but soon faded. Modern mixologists have no problem incorporating egg whites into their drinks, but whole eggs are another matter entirely, and the flip, delightful as it may be, is only encountered rarely.

See also eggs.

Recipe (Brandy Flip, new style): Shake well with ice 60 ml brandy, 15 ml simple syrup, and 1 whole raw egg. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and grate nutmeg on top.

The American Bar-Tender, New York: Hurst, 1874.

B. E. A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew. London: 1699.

Field, Edward. The Colonial Tavern: A Glimpse of New England Town Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. 1897. Reprint, Bowie, MD: Heritage, 1989.

Thomas, Jerry. How to Mix Drinks. New York: Dick & Fitzgerald, 1862.

By: Wayne Curtis