Rum

Fog Cutter

Name: Fog Cutter
Yield: 1 servings

Glass: Collins

Trader Vic's three-spirit sneaker, rum, gin, brandy with citrus, orgeat, and a cream sherry float.

rum gin brandy tiki classic mid-century shaken orgeat

Ingredients

fresh lemon juice (2 oz)
fresh orange juice (1 oz)
orgeat (0.5 oz)
gin (0.5 oz)
light Puerto Rican rum (2 oz)
brandy (1 oz)
cream sherry (0.5 oz)
mint sprig (1)

Trader Vic warned on his menu card: "What a sneaker, positively only two to a person; really, I don't see why people buy them."¹ The recipe is identical in his 1947 and 1972 Bartender's Guides, both built around a cream sherry float.¹^,² Authorship is contested, Donn Beach also served a Fog Cutter at Don the Beachcomber's, and one establishment named Edna Fogcutter's also claimed the name; the Vic version with cream sherry is the one that entered the canon, but the modern historiographic consensus treats authorship as unsettled.³ The closely-related Samoan Fog Cutter (rank 27) is the variant defined by a 151 Demerara float in place of the cream sherry.

Brand recommendations. Best: Don Q Cristal or Bacardi Heritage Limited Edition for the light Puerto Rican; Pierre Ferrand 1840 or Hennessy VS for the brandy; Plymouth or Tanqueray for the gin; Small Hand Foods or BG Reynolds orgeat; Lustau East India Solera or Harveys Bristol Cream for the float. Economical: Plantation 3 Stars or Bacardi Superior; Paul Masson VSOP or E&J VSOP; Beefeater or Gordon's; Liber & Co. orgeat; Taylor New York cream sherry.

Instructions

In a shaker combine fresh lemon juice, fresh orange juice, orgeat, gin, light Puerto Rican rum, and brandy.
Shake with cracked ice and pour into a tall collins glass with fresh ice.
Float cream sherry on top.
Garnish with a mint sprig.

Sources

Bergeron, Bartender's Guide, by Trader Vic (1947) and Bartender's Guide, Revised (1972), Fog Cutter entries, Trader Vic's printed spec (rum / brandy / gin / orgeat / lemon / orange / cream sherry float) appears unchanged across both editions; the "positively only two to a person" menu-card warning is documented alongside the recipe. Vic's authorship claim is self-promotional and should be read with the standard Trader Vic caveat. ↩
"Fog Cutter." Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fog_Cutter (accessed 2026-05-03), confirms the 1947/1972 spec stability and documents the contested authorship (Trader Vic vs. Don the Beachcomber vs. Edna Fogcutter's). Source for this file's measurement bill. ↩
Berry, Sippin' Safari (2017 ed.), Fog Cutter / Samoan Fog Cutter material, flags the disputed Vic-vs-Donn authorship and disambiguates the Fog Cutter (cream sherry float) from the Samoan Fog Cutter (151 Demerara float). ↩