Golden Slipper Cocktail
1/2 Liqueur Glass Yellow Chartreuse. (1 oz Yellow Chartreuse)
The Yolk of 1 Fresh Egg.
1/2 Liqueur Glass Eau de Vie de Danzig. (1 oz Danzig Goldwasser)
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.
I guess an interesting point, if yer a cocktail geek, about the Golden Slipper, is that Robert Vermeire places it in with his Pousse Cafe drinks. But, but by the 1930s, both Craddock and Duffy are saying it is a shaken drink.
Being an old-school kind of guy, I figured pousse cafe. Plus, if you’re shaking the thing, it sort of negates the point of using the gold wasser.
Golden Slipper Cocktail, Old School
1/2 Liqueur Glass Yellow Chartreuse. (1 oz Yellow Chartreuse)
The Yolk of 1 Fresh Egg.
1/2 Liqueur Glass Eau de Vie de Danzig. (1 oz Danzig Goldwasser)
Pour Yellow Chartreuse into a sherry glass. Gently drop in whole egg yolk. Pouring over the back of a spoon, slowly add Danzig Goldwasser, so the two liquids do not mix.
It doesn’t seem like there is a huge visual difference between yellow Chartreuse and Danzig Goldwasser, but the flavors are fairly distinct. The Gold Wasser is not as sweet with more of a gin-like edge than the chartreuse.
On the “golden slipper” front, “The Golden Slipper” appears to be a folk tale of Asian origin. The best, and spookiest, google I found, was this vietnamese version:
A Cinderella Tale from Vietnam
Wow, it’s got ghosts, skeletons, murder, cruelty, etc. Anyway, yeah, that’s Cinderella, all right. Amazing the whitewashed stuff we Anglos get stuck with.
Also, “Golden Slipper” was the name of a charity formed by a group of Jewish Masons in 1922.
Perhaps they enjoyed the odd cocktail?
Update regarding Goldwasser, I received a question, “but is the dantzig sweet? i thought it was just russian eau de vie that had gold flake in it…”
Everything I’ve read suggests that Eau-de-Vie de Danzig and Goldwasser are synonymous. The one I used, “Der Lachs Original Danziger Goldwasser,” is an 80 proof herbal/spice liqueur. It didn’t seem quite as sweet as Yellow Chartreuse, but I didn’t try them side by side, just together in the drink.
Nice article here:
Gdansk Goldwasser: Alchemic Elixir
Goldwasser liqueur (literally ‘gold water’ in German), has been a popular Gdansk tradition since 1598. And though other brands and distilleries have tried to copy it, Goldwasser continues to be inextricably linked to Gdansk. A strong (40%) root and herbal liqueur, Goldwasser’s famous feature is the small flecks of 22 karat gold flake that float in the beverage. Though the posh prestige of the alcohol has historically made it a favorite drink of such darlings as Russia’s Catherine the Great, the rather diminutive gold flakes suspended in Goldwasser fail to make its price inordinate or its health effects negligible.
Hope that helps!
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.