The Death Flip is a trick. But it is also, conveniently, a treat.
First, the Trick: Getting people to order it at all. The Death Flip emerged at the Black Pearl in Melbourne in 2010, invented by Chris Hysted-Adams, who, it’s important to note, earned a degree in creative advertising before he ever stepped behind a bar.
Why is that important to note? Because this was not a drink that was going to get ordered on its own. This drink needed to get sold. Hysted-Adams knew that if he could just get people to try it they’d end up loving it, so he hatched a plan: If you walked into his bar looked at the cocktail menu, you’d see what you’d expect to see—a bunch of cocktail names, and below each a list of its ingredients—with one notable exception, the ominous-sounding Death Flip, which instead of ingredients only had, by way of description, “You don’t wanna meet this cocktail in a dark alley.”
“What’s in the Death Flip?” you might ask. Everyone loves a mystery.
“You’ll have to order it to find out,” is what you might hear in response. Everyone also loves a challenge.
The bartenders literally wouldn’t tell you what was in the drink until you already had one in your hand, for the exact same reason that I’ve gone on at this length and haven’t yet told you, either: Because a list of ingredients, in this case, has the unfortunate tendency to deter drinkers instead of attracting them.
“It was pretty blatantly obvious to me… that no one was going to drink anything on the list that just said ‘tequila, Jägermeister, Chartreuse, and a [whole] egg’” Hysted-Adams explained many years later, on the Cocktail College podcast, “so we thought it might be a good idea to come up with a more creative description for it.” It worked right away, far better than he’d expected. Cocktail people would order it, of course, but regular people would order it as well. “You’d get the macho blokes coming in on a Saturday night, like ‘yeah we’ll get three of the Death Flips, it’ll be great,’” he remembers. “People would have three or four in a night. Next weekend, they’d bring their friend in… I was just as surprised as they were.”
And now, the Treat: The Death Flip is a goddamn delight. If it were just a marketing ploy or a local dare, it would have thrashed for a season and died a quick and quiet death, but there is an irrepressible quality and tastiness for which people kept coming back. It spread quickly and widely, finding its way onto menus in New York and China and London, drinkers across the world drawn in by its intense name and bizarre ingredients. The tequila is the backbone, the Jägermeister is the spice, the Yellow Chartreuse gives ambrosial honey sweetness, and the egg adds a creaminess and a depth that makes the whole thing delicious and, as Hysted-Adams put it, “has a knack for ironing out the wrinkles.”
The overall effect is similar to an Eggnog, one, if you like, from the other side of this mortal veil (coincidentally the drink it has the most in common with, the Colleen Bawn, was also named for death). To drink one, you wouldn’t know that there’s Jägermeister in there, or possibly even tequila. It just tastes good, strong and spiced and decadent, a perfect drink or any occasion that calls for something a little scary, and a little sweet.
Death Flip
- 1 oz. blanco tequila
- 0.5 oz. Jägermeister
- 0.5 oz. Yellow Chartreuse
- 0.25 oz. simple or vanilla syrup (optional)
- 1 whole egg
Add all ingredients to a cocktail tin without ice. Give a quick shake to emulsify the egg, then add ice to the tin, seal well, and shake good and hard for 10 to 12 seconds. Strain up into a sour or coupe class, and garnish with a grate of fresh nutmeg.
NOTES ON INGREDIENTS
Tequila: Across the tests, this variable stayed pretty steady. I wouldn’t use your artisanal allocated blancos for this, an inexpensive 100 percent agave blanco like Cimarron, Olmeca Altos, or Real de Valle. They were all good.
Yellow Chartreuse: Here for honeyed spice. It has a persistence that’s inimitable, so while competing liqueurs, like Benedictine, and very good here, it’s not quite the same—if all you have is Benedictine I’d still make it, but seek out Chartreuse if you can. Make sure to use the Yellow, not the Green—you want the one that’s either 40 or 43 percent alcohol, not the one at 55 percent. That’s another thing entirely, and would not work here at all.
Jägermeister: We have taken pains across the years to convince you that Jägermeister is a good and honorable cocktail ingredient. This cocktail is the easiest argument of them all, as the Jägermeister essentially disappears into the framing of the drink. As for substitutions, I didn’t find anything that worked quite as well, but I admit I didn’t try too hard. I think Averna might be interesting and Vecchio Amaro del Capo would work. If you think of Jägermeister as a German amaro (and you should), the whole world of bittersweet liqueurs opens up to you. Feel free to experiment.
Simple/Vanilla syrup: This was initially made with vanilla syrup, and by all accounts got turned into simple syrup, which is how most recipes are printed now. I wouldn’t make vanilla syrup for this, but if you already have it around, use it. Either way, the drink needs that extra 0.25 oz. of syrup to balance the flavors.
Egg: A whole egg, please. That’s what a “Flip” means. If you’re immunocompromised or a little squeamish, you can use pasteurized eggs (1 egg is about 2 fluid ounces) or just make something else. It needs the egg.
Garnish: Nutmeg is a dynamite garnish on all Flips, and no less here. You can also use other spices, like cinnamon, or honestly nothing at all.
