It is hard to discover a new cocktail. My friend Kennedy Flora and his family and friends found this out about a year-and-a-half ago one weekend in Oxford. I am not sure if they were celebrating a win or drowning out a loss but the mood was certainly Ole Miss sports-related and they had a well-stocked bar cart at their disposal.
Eventually, someone tipped back a high ball made with gin, Chambord, and lime juice and topped with ginger beer or soda. Eureka! Was a new cocktail born?
It was not, but a quick Google search revealed a serendipitous truth: The Floras had discovered the Floradora.
The Floradora is a cocktail made with gin, lime juice, a raspberry-flavored element and is a twist on either a Tom Collins if you top it off with soda or a gin mule if you top it off with ginger beer.
Kennedy recently made a few rounds at a Super Bowl party he hosted using Spanish gin, ginger beer, Chambord raspberry liqueur and lime juice. It was, once again, a hit.
The drink is fizzy, refreshing and not too sweet and the gin — a Spanish brand called Gin Mare in my friend’s case – brings a bouquet of Mediterranean herbal flavors and olives.
We recommend the Chambord but any raspberry-flavored ingredient can be a valid twist on the cocktail. Many recipes simply ask for raspberry syrup and one even asked for “framboise,” a Belgian Iambic beer fermented with raspberries.
It dates back to the early 1900s and is named after an Edwardian musical that debuted in London in 1899 and had a successful run on Broadway as well.
The show was known for its chorus line of “Florodora Girls” and would be a popular production through the 1950s.
There is no literature on how the “O” in the middle became an “A,” likely it was a mistake of dictation due to lax pronunciation. That is my theory at least.
Kennedy’s recipe is provided below.
Ingredients:
Pour the gin, liqueur and lime juice in a Collins glass with ice and stir. Top it off with the ginger beer. Give the drink another stir to incorporate all the elements. Garnish with lime and raspberries
