To say that I’ve become a little obsessed with bourbon sours is probably a bit of an understatement. But it wasn’t always this way. Up until a few years ago, I stayed away from bourbon. It just never especially appealed to me. I preferred my cocktails to be fizzy and full of St. Germaine or a tropical vacation in a glass, like our Hawaiian Stone Sour cocktail.
But San Francisco has a vibrant craft cocktail scene. And eventually, probably during a date night dinner at The Alembic, I finally caved. After all, if the most interesting cocktail on a menu—that’s named after a song you love, no less—features bourbon, you’ve got to just go with it.
Sure, you could ask them to swap to a different liquor. But you don’t want to ruin an amazing taste by being stubborn, do you? Well, I didn’t. And it’s a good thing! Because it turns out I really love bourbon cocktails. And most especially bourbon cocktails with the tiniest bit of frothy egg white foam on the top, like you see here in our Boston Sour.
I got on my bourbon sour kick when I was at Tap 415 for cocktails and catching up with a friend. They had a whiskey sour on the menu, but didn’t have any whiskeys I was particularly excited about. but they DID have Four Roses Bourbon, which I love. After that first bourbon sour, that became my go-to drink. Always up, and preferably in a pretty little coupe glass, like the one we’ve used for our Boston Sour.
Best of all, the Boston Sour only looks fancy. It’s actually incredibly simple to pull together, making it the perfect cocktail for a lazy weekend happy hour. Enjoy!

Boston Sour
Ingredients
- 4 oz bourbon I prefer Four Roses Bourbon for the Boston Sour.
- 1 1/2 oz fresh lemon juice You'll want to squeeze your juice fresh—it's just not the same from a bottle.
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 egg white
Instructions
- Squeeze juice from one fresh lemon, measure, add to cocktail shaker.
- Separate a large egg and discard the yolk. You'll use half the white for each cocktail you make.
- Add bourbon, sugar, and egg white to the shaker.
- Shake well with ice cubes until ingredients are cold, well mixed, and the egg white is frothy.
- Strain into two coupe glasses. Enjoy!
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