Fog Cutter
Rum, brandy and gin behind lemon, orange and orgeat, floated with sherry.
Serving
Drink spec, per drink
Every figure above is per drink and does not move with the count, which is what makes the two service modes comparable. Sugar per litre, strength and standard drinks stay in the units their own authorities publish, because they are figures for comparing rather than for pouring. Dilution is modelled rather than measured, as a fraction of the poured volume before any ice; dotted figures descend from that estimate.
Sherry is routinely fined with isinglass or gelatine, and a producer rarely states whether a given bottle was.
Diet and allergen labels are computed from the ingredients listed on this page and nothing else. They cannot account for cross-contamination or for the particular product you buy, and they are not medical or safety guidance.
Ingredients
60 ml white rum
30 ml cognac
15 ml London dry gin
60 ml fresh lemon juice
30 ml fresh orange juice
15 ml orgeat
15 ml cream sherryInterchangeable by volume at a lower strength, so the float reads thinner and drier rather than richer. The drink loses the raisined sweetness the cream style floats on top of the citrus.flavour: moderate change · strength: minor change · sweetness: moderate change
- 60 ml white rum
- 30 ml cognac
- 15 ml London dry gin
- 60 ml fresh lemon juice
- 30 ml fresh orange juice
- 15 ml orgeat
- 15 ml cream sherry
- ~105 ml water
Glass
Vessel
330 ml of liquid leaves room for at least 94 ml of crushed ice topped in after it, inside the 470 ml the glass holds. The build fails if a recipe ever exceeds its stated vessel.
A batch needs a vessel that closes and fits a fridge shelf.
Method
4 steps · 1m 7sCombine the 60 ml white rum, the 30 ml cognac, the 15 ml London dry gin, the 60 ml fresh lemon juice, the 30 ml fresh orange juice and the 15 ml orgeat in a shaker with ice.
Shake hard for 12s.
Strain into a hurricane glass and fill it with crushed ice.
Float the 15 ml cream sherry on top.
The sherry goes in last, poured gently over the back of a spoon so it sits as its own layer rather than mixing straight through; the drink is meant to be tasted through the sherry first before the rest comes up underneath.
Common pitfallThree spirits and two juices at these proportions read as fruity rather than strong on the nose, which is exactly the trap Victor Bergeron warned about in his own description of the drink. It is not a drink to underestimate on the strength of its first sip.
Keeping and make-ahead
Batched ahead, this keeps sealed and cold. The water line the engine adds is the dilution figure from the spec panel, not a rule of thumb.
About
A three-spirit tiki drink first printed under Trader Vic's own name in 1947, though rival tiki bars of the period are also credited with a version of it.
The Fog Cutter is most closely associated with Victor Bergeron, the founder of the Trader Vic's chain, whose recipe for it appears in his 1947 Bartender's Guide and again, unchanged, in his 1972 revision 1. Bergeron's own note on the drink, printed alongside the recipe, called it "delicious but a triple threat," warning that a fruit-forward glass this size hides three separate spirits underneath it 1.
Attribution is not settled beyond that. Other tiki-era accounts credit a version of the same drink to Don the Beachcomber's, built to the same proportions but naming a specific gold rum, pisco brandy and Plymouth gin rather than the generic spirits Bergeron's recipe calls for 2. Both bars operated in the same competitive mid-century Californian tiki scene that produced the Mai Tai dispute, where more than one bar has a documented claim on a shared drink and no contemporary record settles which came first.
The float of sherry on top is the drink's most distinctive feature against other rum-forward tiki cocktails of the period, most of which build their final layer from a stronger overproof rum rather than a fortified wine 2. Served over ice in a tall glass with citrus, brandy, gin and rum underneath it, the drink is built to be tasted through the sherry first.
- 1Fog Cutteren.wikipedia.org
- 2The Fogcutter (Trader Vic's)forgottencocktails.com