Eater Cocktails: Going Going Gone at The Drifter

Like many of Chicago's best cocktailers, The Drifter co-owner/beverage director Liz Pearce is very much inspired by Charles Joly, who was famously named the best bartender in the world last year. When Pearce worked under Joly at The Drawing Room, he made her a drink that inspires her to this day: a Campari sour with egg white that she describes as "ridiculously simple," but when she tried to recreate at home, she couldn't get it quite right.

The drink taught Pearce a valuable lesson. "I eventually got it," she says, "and I think it's a testament to how even the tiniest fraction of an ounce can change a drink entirely."

So when approached to create a special cocktail at The Drifter for Eater's fourth annual Cocktail Week, Pearce thought back on the experience and came up with "a riff on that but with a little more 'me' in it." The "Going Going Gone" twists that cocktail in her culinary style, with Campari, Giffard Apricot, Fino Sherry, Todd Appel passion fruit cordial, lemon, orange juice, and egg white. It's served up in a coupe glass with an orange twist.

"It's got a slight brininess to it from the Sherry, the apricot gives it a beautiful fruity note, and the Campari keeps the passion fruit from taking over," she says. "It's bitter, sweet, sour, fruity, frothy, and briny. It's like 10 cocktails in one."

Try the 10 cocktails in one for $12, all this week at The Drifter. Maybe you'll see Pegleg Pete too.