Reading the Savoy Cocktail Book several years ago, I encountered a mysterious recipe for a so-called “Cream Fizz”. The recipe is as follows (p. 194):
The Juice of 1/2 Lemon
1/2 Tablespoonful Powdered Sugar
1 Glass Dry Gin
1 Teaspoonful Fresh Cream
Shake, strain into medium glass, and fill with soda water.
Now, adding lemon juice to milk causes it to curdle. An old substitute for buttermilk, in fact, is lemon juice + whole milk. Still, I gave this a try. The result was…not appetizing. I don’t know how common this alleged cocktail was back in the Savoy, but I can’t imagine it was popular. However, after encountering a non-alcoholic drink recipe called the “Thai Daisy” combining lime juice and coconut milk while looking to find uses for orgeat syrup, I became intrigued by the possibility of using coconut cream to make citrus cream cocktails that didn’t curdle. Despite making a mental note, it was some months before I got around to doing it. When making a coconut milk curry for dinner, however, I had the presence of mind to reach into the liquor cabinet before I dumped the milk in. Here is the recipe I used:
3 oz Dry Gin
1.5 oz Fresh Lemon Juice
3 oz Coconut Milk
1 Tbsp Powdered Sugar
Shake and dump into a highball glass, top with soda water.
The results were quite satisfactory. Unfortunately I drank it rather than take a picture [update: I made another one, see picture]. 1 oz simple syrup would probably substitute for the sugar. Also, make sure the coconut milk is well mixed/shaken unless you don’t mind chunks of coconut cream floating around.