This iconic New Orleans drink was created by a very unlikely bar owner. Mr. Henry C. Ramos was born in Indiana but started his career in a beer saloon in Baton Rouge. After some years he decided to buy a bar in New Orleans together with his brother and in 1887 they bought the Imperial Cabinet on Gravier Street. This was where Henry, or Carl to his friends, created the Ramos Fizz in 1888, originally the New Orleans Fizz.

The reason Mr. Ramos was such an unlikely bar owner was that he was a teetotaler and absolutely despised drunkenness. Everyday he walked around his bar talking to the customers to check their level of tipsiness and refusing to serve any more cocktails to intoxicated guests. To make absolutely sure that the Imperial Cabinet stayed a respectable establishment he only accepted the most well-behaved customers. For the same reason he closed the bar every evening at eight o’clock and kept the bar open for a mere two hours on Sundays afternoons and this only after he was talked into it.

Mr. Ramos also had strict rules for how his Ramos Fizz was made stating that it should be shaken for no less than 12 minutes. Since the drink was an instant success he had to keep 20 “shaker boys” making the Ramos Fizz on staff at any given time and even more during Mardi Gras. On October 27, 1919 the last Ramos Fizz was served and the doors of the Imperial Cabinet were closed due to Prohibition, something Mr. Ramos, as a teetotaler fully supported. The recipe remained a secret until he finally revealed it to a reporter from New Orleans Item-Tribune just days before his passing in 1928.

Ramos Fizz

2 parts Gin
1/2 part Lemon juice
1/2 part Lime juice
3/4 part Sugar syrup
1 part Crem
1 Egg white
2 dashes Orange flower water
1-2 parts Club soda

Shake all ingredients except soda without ice (dry shake), preferably 12 minutes. Add ice and shake again. Pour slowly into chilled glass. Add club soda to the shaker to get the remaining froth and pour slowly into glass.