“You love mousse or flan or meringue for that texture, that mouth feel, and that’s the same texture you’re looking for in a cocktail,” she said. “Pasteurized eggs impart this really funky wet-diaper nose.” Raw eggs are crucial to the Earl Grey MarTEAni, she said.

“The tannins in tea, alone, can build up on your palate and exhaust it  which is one of the reasons why many people drink tea with milk and lemon,” she said. “The egg white in this drink achieves the same feat, without the potentially coating effect that you’d get from milk or cream. The raw egg white adds an ethereal mouth feel, much like a foamy mousse  the raw egg white has the ability to aerate into a much greater volume than pasteurized could.”

Or, as Mr. Schwartz said of egg-white drinks: “You see this beautiful frothy chapeau on your drink. You consume first with your eyes.”

For some, Pegu Club’s violation was a sign that Big Brother was closing in.

“If they make it illegal to serve egg-white drinks, that would be Hurricane Katrina for us,” said one of several bartenders and club owners who said they had been challenged by inspectors but declined to be quoted on the record, for fear of antagonizing health officials.

But Elliott S. Marcus, an associate health commissioner, seemed nonplussed by the fuss. The use of raw eggs is not illegal in the city, he said, and there is no cocktail crackdown. City regulations say “shell eggs or foods containing shell eggs” must be heated to 145 degrees or greater for 15 seconds, “unless an individual consumer requests” a preparation with raw egg. Even when customers order hollandaise sauce, “the server has to say this dish has a raw egg in it,” Mr. Marcus said. “The bartender has to make a positive, affirmative statement” if there is raw egg in a cocktail, Mr. Marcus said. “We think, if it rises to the level of risk, then you have to let the buyer beware.”

Although, he said, if a customer orders from a menu that identifies raw egg in a dish or drink, that can serve as notification. And that’s one reason why Ms. Saunders was so concerned about Pegu Club’s citation. The bar’s menu lists the MarTEAni ingredients as “Earl Grey-infused gin, lemon juice, simple syrup, raw egg white” and states that “we take the greatest care in the storage of our organic eggs. Please note, however, that like sushi, the consumption of raw eggs can be hazardous.”