In Episode 6 of Into The Barchive, Dr. Blake Jones and Tim Wright close out their inaugural cocktail family series with the richest, most decadent template of them all: the Flip.

If sours and daisies are about balancing sweet and sour, flips are about balancing alcohol, sweetness, and richness to create a cocktail that drinks like dessert. That richness comes from a key ingredient many people still hesitate to use: the whole egg. Tim admits he is uneasy about eggs in general, but even he cannot deny how incredible a well-made flip can taste once you get past the idea.

To bring the template to life, the guys build two very different flips:

- The historic Coffee Cocktail from Jerry Thomas (1887). Despite the name, there is no coffee in it. It earns the name because it looks like coffee and cream, and it drinks with that same smooth, cozy richness. Built with cognac, tawny port, simple syrup, a whole egg, and finished with freshly grated nutmeg.

- The modern cult classic Death Flip, a bold combination of blanco tequila, yellow Chartreuse, Jägermeister, simple syrup, and a whole egg, crowned with nutmeg. It is polarizing on paper, surprisingly balanced in the glass, and one of the only modern-era flips to break into “classic” status.

After the shaking and straining, Blake and Tim dig into the origins of the flip, tracing it back to late 1600s England, when flips were communal hot drinks frothed with a heated iron “flip dog” plunged into rum, beer, and sugar. As drinking culture shifted toward single servings, the egg became the new engine for that frothy, luscious texture, and the flip evolved into the chilled, silky dessert cocktail we know today.

This episode also covers:

- Why egg whites create lift and foam, and why the yolk creates body and custard-like texture

- The reverse dry shake technique and why it helps flips emulsify cleanly

- How flips declined due to safety concerns and changing lifestyles, then returned during the cocktail renaissance

- How flips relate to eggnog and the broader world of cream and dessert cocktails

- A simple starting template for making flips at home and how to adjust sweetness when you split the base

- To wrap the series, the hosts zoom out and connect the idea of cocktail families to the long tradition of bartenders thinking in structure, from Jerry Thomas to “root recipes” and modern cocktail codex thinking. The goal stays the same across centuries: understanding why drinks work, not just memorizing how to make them.

Make a flip at home, tag your results on Instagram, or reach out at [email protected].

Keep your coupes cold and your nutmeg fresh. See you next time, back in Into The Barchive. Cheers. 🥃