What if I were to tell you that all you need to make your bonfire night go off with a bang was an egg? A raw egg, to be precise, muddled together with sticky sweet honey and a rocket fuel alloy of spirit and liquor, to be consumed fireside with friends. Doesn’t sound too appetising? Well eggs are – and have been – widely used in a plethora of cocktails. Egg white is a key component in the whisky sour and the gin fizz, its frothiness creating their silky texture. Using the yolk results in a more custardy drink: eggnogs and their universal interpretations are winter cocktail staples.

Texturally, a flip nestles between the two: while a whole egg is used, the cocktail contains no milk or cream, so remains light and silken. “There is a light smokiness, alongside an autumnal richness, to the flip that makes it very soothing,” says Ryan Chetiyawardana, aka Mr Lyan, the man behind award winning, hyper-stylised London bars White Lyan and Dandelyan. “When you are retreating from the cold, it’s an amazing remedy.”

Flips have been providing welcome balm from the elements since the late 17th century, when they were wildly popular first among the patrons of colonial America’s taverns, then thirsty Britons. Back then, the drink – also fetchingly known as a bellow-stop, hotch-pot and crambambull – referred to a blend of alcohol, eggs and sugar, and was often served hot and spiced. “Flips contained beer and were served hot, using a red hot poker to foam up or ‘flip’ the drink,” says Ryan.

This toothsome blend remained largely unchanged until the mid-19th century, when it was first listed in bartender extraordinaire Jerry Thomas’ How To Mix Drinks (1862), and the flip began to be served cold. Ryan’s Bonfire Night-inspired version rubs shoulders with the traditional recipe, but omits the beer, instead blending fruity sloe gin and honey-tinged whisky. “Sloe gin has a tangy berry note that leans it more towards a liqueur than the herbal dryness of a gin,” says Ryan.