307. Royal Smile Cocktail

My interpretation:
  2 oz Castle & Key Dry Gin
  2 T orange juice
  1 egg white

Beat egg white and orange juice briefly, then add gin. Shake well (30 seconds), strain into claret glass, serve. — There are different recipes by this name, to which is variously appended, or not, the epithet “Cocktail.” Straub has a “Royal Smile,” implied to be a cocktail, consisting of apple brandy, dry vermouth, grenadine, and lime (or lemon) juice shaken with egg white and served in a claret glass. McElhone has similar, replacing the dry vermouth with gin. In fact, JM 1912, where we first find our present recipe, has that recipe also, but without the “Cocktail” epithet, and without the egg white:

 The applejack-gin-grenadine-sour (here lemon instead of lime) omits the egg (as does the Old Waldorf) and makes it essentially a Jack Rose stiffened with a little gin—but Jack’s Jack Rose has a squirt of seltzer. Meanwhile, the Royal Smile Cocktail here is written out, unusually, in 19th-century paragraph form, is an orange blossom with egg white, served in the other drink’s claret glass. — I believe this cocktail has its cousin in the Savoy “Royal Cocktail No. 1” which gives lemon juice and powdered sugar instead of orange juice, and uses the whole egg (with the yolk); the color would be about the same, and an inaccurate visual memory of the drink’s preparation might explain the difference. This in turn is related to the Royal Fizz, which adds seltzer. Indeed, the drink resembles the basis of an orange-gin fizz minus the fizz. The present recipe might well be of Jack’s own devising.