No meal is complete without protein.  If for some reason you’re looking for a cocktail with protein, look no further.

This cocktail takes a little longer to make because of the number of ingredients, but the result is definitely worth the effort.  It combines a cocktail named for a great American city (San Francisco) with a cocktail that is a national treasure of Peru and Chile (the Pisco Sour).

A classic sign on the bar at Employees Only

I must give credit to Steve Schneider, Principal Bartender at Employees Only in New York, for this cocktail.  My wife and I had the privilege of meeting him last month.  We were discussing cocktails, and I mentioned the Frisco (see my earlier post).  He said he would make a Frisco Sour for me, but with all of the background noise I thought he said Pisco Sour. Once I heard what he really was saying, I was in.   Amusingly, we ran into each other the following week when my wife and I arrived at the Tales Of The Cocktail conference.

I tweaked Steve’s recipe to come up with the following:

Yes, you're reading the sign (located on my home bar) correctly

2 ounces rye whiskey
2/3 ounces Benedictine DOM
Juice from 1/2 lemon
Juice from 1/4 lime
.33 ounces super simple syrup
2 egg whites (there’s your protein)

Combine all ingredients and shake without ice (this is dry shaking and will make the egg whites nice and frothy), add ice, shake again as if you're blasting through a set of exercises at the gym, then strain into a chilled cocktail glass.   This recipe will make enough for two cocktails.

The Rocky Balboa version has four eggs, yolks included, instead of two egg whites.  Just kidding.  The concept of eggs in a glass reminds me of that scene in the first Rocky movie (a great film in my opinion).