Why Bartenders Hate Making This Classic Cocktail

Bartenders are only human. They will, of course, endeavor to please their customers and make whatever cocktail they desire (within reason). But for every drink that only requires a tap or a bottle opener, there are other drinks bartenders truly dread making. One of those drinks is the Ramos Gin Fizz, a New Orleans favorite and a bartender's, well, least favorite.

It has an interesting flavor, to be sure. Described as a mix between key lime pie (which you can make using regular limes) and an orange creamsicle (one of the ten best ice cream truck treats) but with a long list of fussy, patience-testing ingredients to match including egg whites, heavy cream, and orange flower water. What's more, it's a drink that requires a frankly absurd amount of shaking. The original recipe calls for a full 15 minutes of shaking, which would be enough to drive anyone mad.

All of this doesn't necessarily mean you should never order a Ramos Gin Fizz. If you go to a bar that has it on the menu, that could mean the business is especially proud of its recipe and the extra effort that goes into making the cocktail would be worth it for them and for you. If they hated it that much, it would be easy enough to remove it from the menu, after all. If you don't see it on the menu, though, don't order it. If you try, the bartender may make it for you anyway, but they certainly won't do it happily.

If you want to try a Ramos Gin Fizz, it's a good idea to go down to New Orleans. The Ramos Gin Fizz is a NoLa staple. In fact, it's fairly uncommon outside the city limits. As you might expect from a drink invented in the Big Easy, it has a pretty interesting history. The cocktail was invented by one Henry C. "Carl" Ramos, a man who spent his life working in bars and saloons despite being a devoutly religious teetotaller. Because the cocktail required so much shaking, he developed a sort of assembly line where a dozen employees would shake the drink in turns.

Ramos quit the bar business once Prohibition kicked in, but he revealed the RGF recipe to a newspaper days before he died and the drink lived on. Famously, the Louisiana politician Huey Long, a populist known for his vociferous criticism of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, flew up from Louisiana to FDR's home state of New York with a bartender to show the staff of the Hotel New Yorker how to make his beloved Ramos Gin Fizz. He referred to it as his "gift to New York." But as the media-hungry Long gave a speech contrasting his policies to FDR's while the bartender shook the drink, it was clear his true motivations were far from altruistic. (Long was planning to primary FDR before being assassinated later that year.)