“Everyone has some weird connection, love or hate, with eggs,” Celina Dzyacky said. “This one thing we consume every day is so good for you and magical and creepy, all at the same time.”
Challenged to make a cocktail with hard-boiled eggs by Charlie Schott of Parson’s Chicken & Fish, Dzyacky, a bartender at Lula Cafe, became slightly obsessed. “The science of them was haunting my dreams,” she said. “They’re kind of beautiful. . . . I’m going to have a heart attack, I’ve eaten so many.”
Eggs are a common ingredient in cocktails, but they’re usually raw. Whole eggs impart what Dzyacky describes as “velvety thickness” to drinks, while egg whites create foam. Making a cocktail with cooked eggs was “a little trickier,” she said. “And smelled so bad.”
Dzyacky took her inspiration from the coquito, an eggnoglike Puerto Rican rum drink that her mom used to quaff. Instead of rum, though, she chose pisco for its lightness and floral notes. The major challenge, Dzyacky said, was masking the smell of the hard-boiled egg, which she blended with water to create a puree. Blood orange and lemon zest helped solve the problem, as did condensed rice milk, which gave the drink a sweetness that she said mellowed the sulfurous egg. Other ingredients included heavy cream and lemon juice; Dzyacky described the cocktail, which she dubbed the Eggsistential Crisis, as an “adult milk shake” or a “protein shake with booze.”
“The drink kind of looks like [something from] the milk bar from A Clockwork Orange,” she said. “You might not want to drink it outside on a hot day, but you might want to drink it in a really creepy, dark milk bar in London.”
The Eggsistential Crisis
2 oz Macchu pisco
1 oz heavy cream
.75 oz lemon juice
.5 oz organic condensed rice milk
.25 oz simple syrup
Lemon and orange zest
1 Hard-boiled egg
In a cocktail shaker, combine the pisco, cream, lemon juice, rice milk, and simple syrup. Use a hand blender to puree the hard-boiled egg with a little water, then add to a separate container (like the smaller side of a Koriko shaker) and grate lemon and orange zest on top. Add ice and the egg puree mixture to the cocktail and shake “a lot”—for at least two minutes, and ideally for eight. Strain into a glass and garnish with an orange peel pigtail.
Who’s next:
Dzyacky has challenged Jonathan Van Herik of Rainbo Club to create a cocktail with bacon bits. Van Herik is a vegetarian, she said—but many brands of commercially produced bacon bits are actually vegan.