Many bars use egg whites to make cocktails with a frothy texture like the Pisco Sour and Clover Club. Often the egg yolks and shells are discarded.  On this page we look for egg white substitutes and uses for leftover parts of the egg. 

According to the book How Bad Are Bananas, a single egg has the footprint of 4 bananas, even before you cook it.

Quick Links

• Egg White Alternatives
• Uses for Leftover Chickpeas from Aquafaba
• Other Foamy Foods
• Milk Punch and Milk Washing
• Reducing Egg White Use
• Yolks- Uses for Leftovers
• Egg Shell Reuse 

Egg White Alternatives

• Commercial foamers - Some commercial foamers contain powdered or pasteurized egg/milk products, while others do not. (Many bartenders wish to reduce the amount of animal products used.)
  • Ms Betters Miraculous Foamer- Recommended by Nicholas Box of Acorn in Vancouver
• Aquafaba -  Aquafaba is the viscous water in which beans such as chickpeas have been cooked. Technically other bean waters can be used but chickpea water is the most common. It is often used as an egg white substitute in baking, and it can be used similarly in cocktails. 
  • According to this book, 2 tablespoons of aquafaba equials 1 large egg white, 1 Tablespoon of aquafaba equals one large egg yolk. 
  • You can used canned chickpea water or cook chickpeas from dry. Be sure to use unsalted canned beans. 
  • In taste tests, raw chickpea flour foams great, but unfortunately tastes very metallic and settles out into the bottom of the glass. 
  • Aquafaba can be flavored to reduce any bean taste. 
  • According to this article, aquafaba from canned beans can last up to 5 days when refrigerated. And according to this bartender, it can last 2-3 months when frozen. Some people have recommended freezing it into ice cubes to use when shaking, though we have not confirmed that this works. 
  • How to prepare dried chickpeas for both hummus and aquafaba. Fatima Hite-Igras of Palm House says that aquafaba can be frozen and used when thawed. 
• Burrata Water 
  • The water leftover from cheesemaking can be used as a foamer. [info]
• Soap Bark Foamer
  • Soap bark is bark that is used to make foamy food and beauty products. 
  • Recipe from Austin's Roosevelt Room
• Methyl Cellulose
  • Andreas Sanidiotis of Lost + Found Drinkery suggests this instead of other egg white replacements. He says you can add it to your syrup or dust it into the shaker.

Uses for Chickpeas from Aquafaba

• Roasted Garbanzos recipe
• Hummus 

Foamy Foods Instead of Egg Whites

Somethings used in cocktails are naturally foamy. They may not be quite as frothy as egg white and aquafaba, but they can give a nice texture on top of drinks. 

• Pineapple juice [mentioned here]
• Coconut milk [mentioned here]
• Starchy vegetable juice including corn, carrot, peas [mentioned here]
• Angostura bitters  [mentioned here]
• Pasta water? [video]

Milk Washing and Milk Punch

• Eggs have a larger carbon impact than milk does, so if you were deciding between making cocktails frothy with egg whites vs milk-washed spirits, go with milk.
• Dave Arnold's book Liquid Intelligence notes that you can "milk wash" base spirits like gin so that when they're mixed into cocktails they produce a nice foamy texture. 
• Julian de Féral shares a recipe for a sour mix foamer made in the milk punch method from aging lemon juice and scrap peels. 
• For more Milk Punch tips and information, see the Milk Punch section of the Citrus page. 

Using Less Egg Whites

• Many bars combine egg whites and store them in a container such as a pancake syrup pourer or squeeze bottle. It is important when combining egg whites to ensure best food safety handling practices, as if any one egg had salmonella it could infect the batch. (But this is extremely uncommon.)
  • Batching Egg Whites: Process and Quantity
• However, when using combined egg whites you can measure them to use an amount less than one full egg's worth. Bars use anywhere from .5 oz to 1 oz of egg whites per drink:
  • At Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa, CA, they use 1/2 oz egg whites per drink
• Nicholas Box uses 1 egg white in Pisco Sours, only 1/2 ounce (15ml) in some drinks.

How Long do Egg Whites Last?

• 5 days if kept cold, according to Aisling Gammill 

Using Leftover Egg Yolks 

• If only egg whites are used at the bar, it would be helpful to find a use for egg yolks that would otherwise be discarded.
• Golden Fizz: A sour or a fizz uses only egg whites. A Flip uses a whole egg. A Golden Fizz uses only the egg yolk. recipe
• We use may more egg whites than yolks at the bar. We give the egg yolks to the kitchen for desserts and curing. [Boston’s Seth Friedus]
• Eggs - We separate our eggs and share the yolks with the kitchen for ice cream. [Jared Hirsch of Sidebar in Oakland]
• Eggs - When we have to break egg whites, we give the yolks to the kitchen for aioli. [Tamir Ben-Shalom of Bull Valley Roadhouse in Port Costa, CA]
• Recipe: whey, leftover egg yolks, and honey to make honey cream
• 37 Ways to Use Extra Egg Yolks

Egg Shell Reuse

• Egg shells are used to remove bitter/astringent notes in an Espresso Martini [mentioned here from The 18th Room in NYC]
• Use to make carbonation, according to this article. “I would say one of the most unique ingredients we develop is making soda using eggshells,” says Matt Whiley, the owner of Scout London and Sydney. “The byproduct of combining calcium from eggshells and acetic acid (vinegar) is carbon dioxide, so we add this to flavored waters and bottle them to create fizzy soda.”
• Many people crush eggshells and use as a garden fertilizer.
• Make homemade sidewalk chalk
• Some websites mention using ground eggshells as a scouring powder to clean pots and pans
• Make them into votive candles 
• Egg shells, if boiled/ground, can make a calcium powder supplement. [health info] [recipe]