The Ramos Gin Fizz is the most labor-intensive cocktail in common service. Eight ingredients — gin, lemon, lime, sugar, cream, egg white, orange flower water, soda — shaken without ice, then with ice, for as long as you can stand it. The drink was created in 1888 by Henry Charles Ramos at the Imperial Cabinet Saloon in New Orleans, and made the bar so famous it had to keep a rotating line of shakermen — supposedly twenty during Mardi Gras — to keep up with orders.
Shake and shake and shake until there is not a bubble left, but the drink is smooth and snowy white and of the consistency of good rich milk.
Stanley Clisby Arthur, Famous New Orleans Drinks (1938), recording Ramos's own instructionRamos's Saloon
Henry Ramos bought the Imperial Cabinet Saloon at the corner of Gravier and Carondelet in New Orleans in 1888 and ran it until 1907. The drink, originally called a "New Orleans Fizz," became identified with him and the bar. By the time Prohibition closed his operation in 1919, the cocktail was famous enough that Huey Long had it shaken for him at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York, requiring multiple bartenders flown in to do it properly.
The recipe was kept secret until Ramos's brother published it in 1928 to settle the long-running speculation. The published spec — recorded again by Stanley Clisby Arthur in 1938 — is the canonical reference, and is the basis for every modern version.
The Spec
Two ounces gin, half ounce lemon, half ounce lime, one ounce simple syrup (a teaspoon of sugar is traditional but harder to dissolve), one ounce heavy cream, one egg white, three drops orange flower water. Dry shake hard, add ice and shake again until your arms hurt, strain into a chilled highball, top with cold soda water until the foam rises an inch above the rim.
Why the Shake Is So Long
The drink relies on the egg white and cream forming a stable, fine-bubbled foam. The dry shake (no ice) builds the foam; the wet shake (with ice) chills the drink without breaking it. Two minutes minimum for the wet shake is the modern consensus; Arthur's text says "twelve minutes" — likely an exaggeration that became part of the legend. Five minutes is plenty if your dry shake was vigorous.
Orange Flower Water Is a Drop Game
Three to five drops, no more. Orange flower water is the cocktail's signature, but it goes from perfume to soap at six drops. A bottle in the bar can serve a year of Ramoses without running low.
The Soda Pour Trick
The classic move: pour the shaken drink into a tall glass without ice and without soda, let it rest for ten seconds so the foam locks, then trickle a small amount of cold soda water into the bottom through a long bar spoon. The foam rises above the rim like a head on a stout.
Bottom Line
The Ramos rewards effort and discipline and punishes both shortcuts and over-engineering. Make one at home for someone you like, on a slow Saturday morning, and you'll understand why Ramos needed twenty shakermen. For service at scale this is a one-at-a-time drink; for home it's a once-in-a-while showpiece.