The Story Behind The IMO Flip

There’s no better time than the holiday season to try flip-style cocktails, which are typically shaken up with an entire egg, resulting in a velvety smooth, dessert-style drink. Designed by the team at NYC’s Shinji’s, the IMO Flip flips the style on its head by adding eggs to a foam that rests atop the cocktail as a garnish rather than rising to the top after vigorous shaking.

The drink begins with a Jamaican rum that’s been infused with fenugreek and reduced sweet potato juice. (When reduced, sweet potato juice takes on a creamy consistency that serves the same role a whole egg traditionally would when mixed with spirits in flips.) For further emulsification, the team adds guar gum, xanthan gum, kappa carrageenan, and maple syrup which round out the luscious fruity rum base.

The Shinji’s team achieves the flip’s signature foam head by prepping a Starward Nova whisky and rooibos tea egg custard that gets dispensed through an iSi whipper for extra creaminess.

Once your ingredients are ready, building the cocktail itself is fairly straightforward. Simply add your rum mixture, white soy sauce, and sweet potato vinegar to a shaker, and strain into a pearl diver glass before dispensing the IMO foam. It’s a lengthy, labor-intensive cocktail that might require some special equipment to execute, but if you’re up to the challenge, the juice is well worth the squeeze.

Ingredients

  • 4 1/2 ounces Rum Mixture*
  • 6 drops white soy sauce
  • 1 squeeze sweet potato vinegar
  • Garnish: IMO Foam**

Directions

  1. Add ingredients to a shaker tin with ice
  2. Shake and strain into a pearl diver glass.
  3. Top with IMO Foam

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Updated: 2025-12-04

*Rum Mixture Ingredients

  • 30 grams fenugreek
  • 1 750-ml bottle rum, preferably aged
  • 1 sweet potato
  • Maple syrup (see directions to calculate amount)
  • Guar gum (see directions to calculate amount)
  • Kappa carrageenan (see directions to calculate amount)
  • Xanthan gum (see directions to calculate amount)

*Rum Mixture Directions

  1. Add fenugreek to rum and infuse for 3 days at room temperature.
  2. Once time has passed, strain, bottle, and close.
  3. Cut sweet potato into small pieces and juice with a juice extractor.
  4. In a heavy bottomed pot at low heat, reduce sweet potato juice by 20 percent. Whisk without stopping to make sure the juice doesn’t stick and burn. Allow to cool.
  5. Weigh reduced sweet potato juice and measure out following ingredients:
  6. Multiply weight by 1.05 to determine how much fenugreek-infused rum to use.
  7. Multiple weight by 0.25 to determine how much maple syrup to use.
  8. Combine sweet potato juice, rum, and maple syrup. Weigh combination.
  9. Multiply weight by 0.001 to determine the weight of guar gum, kappa carrageenan, and xanthan gum to use.
  10. Add rum mixture to a blender and turn on low.
  11. Slowly add guar gum, kappa carrageenan, and xanthan gum powders and blend on low for 4 minutes.
  12. Once blended, homogenize mixture at 10,000 rps for 5 minutes.
IMO Flip

**IMO Foam

Ingredients

  • 4 eggs
  • 750 grams hot Rooibos tea
  • 250 grams Starward Nova Australian Whisky
  • 100 grams trimoline invert sugar syrup
  • Sheet gelatin (see directions to calculate amount)
  • Xanthan gum (see directions to calculate amount)

Directions

  1. Crack eggs into a bowl and whisk until smooth.
  2. Combine Rooibos tea with Starward Nova and pour into eggs while whisking. Ensure this is done slowly and carefully so the eggs don’t scramble.
  3. Pour contents into a sauce pot, add trimoline, and tare the weight of the liquid.
    1. Multiply weight by 0.02 to determine how much sheet gelatin to use.
    2. Multiply weight by 0.0005 to determine how much xanthan gum to use.
  4. Add sheet gelatin to an ice bath and let sit for 10 minutes
  5. Squeeze out excess water from the sheet and add gelatin to the pot.
  6. Cook over medium-high heat until temperature reaches 175° F, whisking constantly.
  7. Strain through chinois (or fine, narrow mesh strainer) and cool over an ice bath.
  8. Once cool, add mixture to vitamix and turn on low.
  9. Add xanthan gum and process until well combined.
  10. Transfer mixture to the fridge to store.
  11. Add mixture to an iSi canister to serve with the cocktail.