Why A New York Sour Should Actually Be Called A Chicago Sour

New York is home to many cocktail bars and speakeasies where a delicious hand-crafted cocktail is just an order away. Yet, many question if the Big Apple truly had a hand in pioneering famous drinks like the New York Sour. This cocktail is traditionally made with whiskey, simple syrup, lemon juice, and red wine, which are shaken and poured into a glass. More red wine is drizzled on top to form a red layer above the cocktail base. While it may look too pretty to drink, its fruity and sharp taste will convince you otherwise. The drink's origins are a bit muddled, but all signs point to Chicago being its birthplace.

An article published in an 1883 issue of the Chicago Tribune describes a local bartender named Tommy preparing what's believed to be an early version of the drink. "The writer calls it a Whiskey Sour, but the terminology he used suggests Tommy was making a Claret Snap, which was one of the names used for a sour with a red wine float back then," Petr Balcarovsky, lead bartender of The Apparatus Room in Detroit, tells Food and Wine. The cocktail's Chicago roots went under the radar for decades, causing a new nickname — the New York Sour — to emerge after it was printed in a 1934 book called the "Mr. Boston Bartender's Guide."

You don't get a Chicago Sour without the Whiskey Sour. The key difference is that, while a Whiskey Sour is made with bourbon, egg white, sugar syrup, bitters, and lemon juice, a Chicago Sour also includes dry red wine for a sweet, fruity flavor and decorative flair. 

Another standout quality of a Chicago Sour is the optional use of egg white. If you choose to add egg, it's usually combined with the other ingredients in a cocktail shaker to produce a thick and foamy drink. Whether you order your cocktail with or without the egg, think of the Windy City next time you're in the mood for this tasty concoction. Though the New York Sour name stuck and is now the most common title for the drink, calling it a Chicago Sour leans toward being the better option if you want to capture the cocktail's origins and acknowledge its shared history.