CigarsLover Magazine Awards Issue

The reasons why eggs began to be used in cocktails were
different and, from my personal point of view, all valid. At
first it was believed that its use helped to make softer and
less imperfect to the palate a drink made with spirits that
did not shine for their excellent quality. Other sources would
see in the use of the egg an addition motivated by its energizing
properties (in the movie Cocktail with Tom Cruise they
prepared Gin fizz with a whole egg exactly for this reason).
This way we come to what is called "modern mixology".
Nowadays the addition of egg white to a drink is useful to
give a drink a soft and silky texture and a sensation of pleasantness
on the palate. Chemically a foam is the visible effect
of the dispersion of a gas in a liquid. Without going too
much into detail, surfactants do reduce surface tension of
a liquid, which means the pressure value that a gas needs
to exercise on the surface of a liquid to be able to disperse
into it. All foams are composed of two parts, identifiable in
the dispersed phase (gas) and the dispersing phase (liquid).
The variation of the characteristics of one of these two phases
changes the final texture, in fact influencing two essential
elements of the foam: viscosity and creaminess.
Creaminess is a direct consequence of the size of the dispersed
substance. Human tongue can distinguish particles
larger than about 30 microns, and this means that, if
all the bubbles in a foam are less than this size, the tongue
will perceive a perfectly creamy foam. On the other hand,
with bubbles of dimensions beyond 30 microns, the sensation
will be more grainy or sparkling. Viscosity, on the other
hand, is the property of liquids that is defined by the force
#5-2022 CigarsLover Magazine
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