Martini (Turf Club)

This twist on a Martini undergoes additional twisting here as I prefer to use triple sec (Cointreau) to the Maraschino liqueur generally demanded. 

Turf Club Martini

2 oz Old Tom Gin (classic London dry gin also works)
0.75 oz Dry Vermouth
0.25 oz triple sec
2 dashes orange bitters
1 drop MSG and salt solution
Absinthe rinse
Olives for garnish.

Spritz a chilled Nick and Nora glassa with Absinthe. Stir the remaining ingredients with ice and strain into the glass. Add olives.

If you have space, try pre-mixing a batch and keeping a bottle in the freezer for always-on ice-cold martini needs.

Gimlet (gin)

I've recently become obsessed with a Salted Lime Leaf Gimlet made at a bar down the road in Austin. They use gin and a perfectly clear "salted lime leaf cordial", served in a nick and nora glass with a salted rim. It pairs amazingly with their $1 happy hour oysters. This version of a gimlet is simpler, and almost as delicious.

Gimlet

2 oz gin
0.75 oz lime juice
0.75 oz simple syrup
Pinch of salt

Shake ingredients in a shaker with ice. Double strain into a nick and nora glass.

I recently discovered there is a class of spirit called "coastal gins", which lean into marine-adjacent ingredients and saline notes. Mermaid Gin from the Isle of Wight, with its "hint of sea air" tasting note, works great in the recipe above. The bottle looks pretty cool too.

Fino Martini

 

A new twist on the gin martini involves ditching the dry vermouth and replacing it with fino sherry, giving the drink a savory, almondy, almost saline character. I found the following recipe in an issue of Bon Appétit.

Fino Martini

2 oz gin (Plymouth works great)

0.75 oz fino sherry

Dash of orange bitters

Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a cocktail glass. Garnish with olives.

Lemon Drop

At some point during the earlier stages of the pandemic I stumbled across a recipe for the Lemon Drop, a 1970s-era sweet vodka concoction. Lacking vodka, but stocked full of gin, I swapped the main ingredient and made a few other alterations to produce what I insist is a more grownup and fragrant interpretation, whose name I liked and kept.

Lemon Drop

(Serves 2)

3 oz gin
1.5 oz triple sec
1.5 oz lemon juice
0.75 oz simple syrup
1 oz egg white

Dry shake all the ingredients (without ice) until the egg white is pillowy. Add ice and shake again until the ingredients are chilled. Strain into a chilled coupe.

Although not pictured above, I have been known to dash a couple of drops of Angostura bitters on the surface of the drink before serving, Pisco Sour-style.

Saketini

I like sake, but some recipes for sake-based martinis appear to be designed for those who are indifferent to the life-enriching rice drink. It's delicate, you see, and you can't tell me that drowning a teaspoon of the stuff in a giant slug of gin, as proposed here, is going to do it justice. Forget about using sake as you would dry vermouth in a trad martini - give it the starring role.

Saketini

60ml (2oz) sake
30ml (1oz) gin

Pour ingredients into a mixing glass with ice and stir well. Strain into a martini glass and garnish with a cucumber slice.

I used Hendrick's for my gin and Sawanotsuru (from Waitrose) for my sake. Some have suggested using vodka instead of gin. Don't.

Clover Club

The Clover Club is a pink drink of distinction hailing from pre-prohibition times. There is something delightful about its gin/citrus/foam combination - don't ask me what. This recipe is borrowed from Dale DeGroff's beautiful booze bible The Essential Cocktail.

Clover Club

45ml (1.5oz) gin
22.5ml (0.75oz) lemon juice
22.5ml (0.75oz) simple syrup
1/2 teaspoon Grenadine
White of 1/2 small egg

Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker - without ice - and shake well to lightly whip the egg white. Add ice and shake some more, before straining into a martini or champagne coupe glass.

It's not even that hard to make, once you've dealt with the egg white (which, by the way, definitely benefits from a bit of dry shaking before the addition of ice). Careful you don't overdo the Grenadine, that pink pomegranate syrup, which is better in touches.

MORE: For a Clover Leaf, simply garnish the thing with a sprig of fresh mint.

Bramble

Created by Dick Bradsell in London's Soho, in the nineteen-eighties, the Bramble marries gin, lemon and sweetness in a fruitier reinvention of the 19th century Gin Fix, or sour.

Bramble

60ml (2oz) gin
30ml (1oz) fresh lemon juice
15ml (0.5oz) simple syrup
15ml (0.5oz) Creme de Mure (blackberry liqueur)
Blackberries to garnish

Fill a tumbler with crushed ice, add gin, lemon and simply syrup and stir. Add more ice if required. Drizzle Creme de Mure on top and garnish with blackberries.

If you can be bothered with crushing ice (required for extra dilution) the Bramble is well worth a try. It's been described elsewhere as England's answer to the Cosmopolitan - but don't let that put you off.

Porch Swing

M spotted the recipe for this great summer cocktail from the Smitten Kitchen blog. It's a great twist on the usual Pimm's and lemonade, and the cucumber is exceptional.

Porch Swing

45ml (1.5oz) Hendrick's Gin

45ml (1.5oz) Pimm’s No. 1

120ml (4oz) homemade lemonade*

7-Up or bottled lemonade

10 paper-thin half moon slices of cucumber 

Pour gin, Pimm’s and lemonade into tall glass. Add a few ice cubes and a splash of 7-Up. Finish with cucumber slices.

*Homemade Lemonade:

1 part freshly squeezed lemon juice

1 part simple syrup**

2 parts water

**Simple syrup:

1 part sugar

1 part water

Add boiling water to sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved.

Amsterdam Vespa

This drink was my favourite of a good bunch, created and handed out by Drinksfusion - a "food and drink design company" - at a freebie event at the Cobden Club organised by review site Qype.

I failed to find out exactly how it was made, with the right proportions, but managed to snap a photo of the drinks menu, at least, which is how I came by the following rough guide:

Amsterdam Vespa

Ketel One vodka

Roggenaer Genever aged rye spirit
Lilette aperitif 
A touch of absinthe

Shake ingredients with ice and serve straight up with a lemon twist.

Drinksfusion's care for its craft was evidenced by a conversation I had with one of its number, who enthusiastically and at some length extolled the relative merits of different varieties of lime. One of their specialties is clever pairings of booze and canapes, which is how I ended up holding a 'seared tuna bite' in one hand and a 'watermelon shot' in the other (read more about the food here). I'm told such expertise can be obtained for private parties, as well as the usual corporate gigs, for a certain fee.

I'm really intrigued by genever, otherwise known as Holland gin, having read about its use in many a cocktail from the olden days. From what I gather, it's sweeter and stronger than the 'new-style' dry gin on which us British types were raised. In the Vespa, it worked a treat, providing a more substantial mouthfeel, before the green fairy fluttered its wings at the finish. If anyone's still scared of absinthe, by the way, may I suggest they try it - like here - in 'touches'. I'm beginning to believe this spirit is more rewarding in a supporting role than as a lead.

Martini (1:1)

I've already dealt with the martini, here and here, but after trying the following recipe from David Wondrich's wonderful cocktail bible, Imbibe, I decided this one simply had to be blog-ed.

Dry Martini

45ml (1.5oz) gin
45ml (1.5oz) dry vermouth
Dash of orange bitters
Twist of orange peel

Pour ingredients into a mixing glass with ice. Stir well and strain into a martini glass. Squeeze a piece of orange peel over the surface of the drink.

Observant observers will notice the interesting element here is the 1:1 proportion of G to V, rather than the more common 2:1 ratio (as seen here). To stand up to such a large slug of vermouth the gin should preferably be robust (Tanqueray or Beefeater is recommended). The vermouth called for is Noilly Prat.

Crucially, or at least interestingly, the "dry" in this dry martini denotes the use of dry (French) vermouth rather than the sweeter Italian sort, as traditionally used. It does not mean hardly any vermouth, which seems to be a modern tendency, like Pop Idol or grime music.

As Wondrich writes: "Mixed like this, with half gin and half vermouth and a dash of orange bitters, the Martini is an entirely different drink to the one we know... a gentleman among cocktails."

Pink Rhubarb Gin & Tonic

Bob Bob Ricard
1 Upper James Street
London W1F 9DF

As a curtain raiser to a Russian vodka tasting at Bob Bob Ricard, we were served a drink so delicate and delightful that it demands its own post. The pink rhubarb G&T was ice-cold, barely carbonated - just a slight spritz - sweet/sour and warming, topped off with a playful sugary foam. The gin - Bombay Sapphire - had been infused with rhubarb and sugar over a hot stove and left to steep before being strained. I may try this at home one day - but first I may have to return to BBR for further research in the field.

Martin Miller's Gin Class

Miller's Residence
111a Westbourne Grove
London W2 4UW

Within seven seconds of entering the bar at Miller's Residence I was holding a cold, crisp martini. Now that’s what I call a welcome. I say ‘bar’, but this was more like a drawing room full of oddities and uncommon things. We were here for a gin class, and my martini was part of the lesson. By the end of the evening, led by gin master Craig Harper, we had worked our way through five variations of the classic drink, and would have happily stayed behind for detention if given the chance.

Before I get to the drinks, if you please, I'd like to share some of my lecture notes. The cocktail, we learned, was born some 200 years ago, in America, as a short, sharp, strong ‘eye-opener’ to start the day. Over the years it developed, with the emergence of the early evening cocktail hour, as the beverage that marked the point when work gave way to leisure, a moment poetically captured by historian Bernard de Voto, in his 1950s book The Hour:

"This is the violet hour, the hour of flush and wonder, when affections glow and valor is reborn, when the shadows deepen magically along the edge of the forest and we believe that, if we watch carefully, at any moment we may see a unicorn."

Gin, we also learned, came into first use as a medicine, of sorts, before Dutch soldiers began downing the stuff as they charged into war, with attendant “Dutch courage”, and the spirit caught on as something to imbibe for pleasure.

At Miller's Residence - the spiritual home of Martin Miller's gin - our journey started in 1884 with the first known martini recipe to make it to print, the Martinez (below right), which I quickly decided was the closest thing I’d ever tasted to a Winter Martini, if such a drink exists. In contrast to more recent recipes, this one used sweet vermouth, the Italian kind, made with about 50 different herbs and spices, rather than the dry French style, which uses about 20.

Martinez

35ml (1.2oz) Martin Miller’s Gin

35ml (1.2oz) sweet vermouth

5ml (one bar spoon) Curacao

2 dashes of bitters

Stir ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.

It was sherry-sweet, which M loved, with a rather heavy mouthfeel, but I felt the sweet vermouth was rather too present. It was certainly interesting. Try one and see.

Dry Martini

35ml Martin Miller’s Gin

35ml dry vermouth

2 dashes orange bitters

2 dashes Curacao

1 dash Peychaud’s bitters

Lemon twist

Stir ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass.

This was a Dry Martini circa 1903, back when the "Dry" denoted the choice of dry vermouth, rather than the near-absence of any vermouth, as current fashions seem to prefer it. This was the first time I’d had my martini with Curacao (Grand Marnier, to be specific) and bitters, and overall it made a nice, pinkish aperitif, crisper than the Martinez. Someone said the taste was “flat”, and I see what they meant. It provided less of a gin taste than one would normally expect from a martini, which some palates might like.

Time passed, and soon we’d reached 1922 on our gin travels. The Harry’s Dry Martini (below right) distinguished itself here by its call for the cocktail shaker, a choice that would no doubt find favour with a certain British spy.

 

Harry’s Dry Martini

50ml Martin Miller’s Gin

25ml dry vermouth

Orange or Angostura bitters, if required.

Shaken with ice, not stirred. Strain into a cocktail glass.

This was the first time I’d really appreciated the difference between stirring and shaking. The shaken ones (make sure you use lots of ice!) look cloudier than the stirred ones (that would be the air bubbles), but they’re also significantly colder, as well as more diluted. Ice-cold, crisp and gin-strong – this may well have been my favourite of the evening.

Post-war, things got a little more ginny, with a Martini De Lux from 1948 increasing the ratio of gin to vermouth to seven-to-one.

Martini De Lux

70ml Martin Miller’s Gin

10ml dry vermouth

Lemon twist

Stir ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and add a twist of lemon peel.

This was the drink I was served as I entered the classroom, and it was certainly one of my favourites. Craig's simple and effective lemon twist technique was a revelation, spraying a fine citrus mist into the air and covering the surface of the drink with fragrant lemon oils...

Lemon Twist

1. Use a knife to cut a circle of lemon peel, about the size of a 10-pence piece, taking care to leave behind the pith.
2. Hold it over the glass with the peel-side facing the drink.
3. Pinch it fiercely between thumb and forefinger, spraying the oils over the surface of the drink.
4. Discard peel.

Finally, to the Fifties. The Super Dry Martini Doble (circa 1951) called for Martin Miller’s Westbourne-strength gin (45.2% abv rather than the usual 40%). My impression was of a crisp, slightly sweet drink, with an appealing anise aroma.

Super Dry Martini Doble

50ml Martin Miller’s Westbourne-strength gin

25ml dry vermouth

2 dashes absinthe

2 dashes orange bitters

Lemon twist

Stir ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a cocktail glass and add a twist of lemon peel.

I didn’t need convincing that gin was a fine drink but I came away from the tasting more convinced regardless. As for Martin Miller’s Gin, in particular, it’s distilled in England before being shipped to Iceland to be mixed with "unbelievably pure" Icelandic water; the aroma is juniper and lime, the taste is clean and a touch citrus-sweet - and it makes a fine martini.

Gin Fizz

I can think of no better way to introduce the Gin Fizz than with this heartfelt tribute from San Franciscan barman Ernest P. Rawling, circa 1914:

"At any time or in any place where the tongue and throat are dry; when the spirits are jaded and the body is weary; after a long automobile trip on hot and dusty roads; it is then that the Gin Fizz comes like a cooling breeze from the sea, bringing new life and the zest and joy of living."

(Quote taken from Imbibe by David Wondrich)

Having already experimented with a more fiddly variation of this refreshing American cocktail, the Ramos Gin Fizz (see here and here), I decided it was time to give the original a try.

Gin Fizz

60ml (2 oz) gin
1.5 tsp (0.25 oz) simple syrup
Juice of half a lemon (0.75 oz)
Soda water (6 oz)

Add simple syrup, lemon juice and gin to a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well and strain into a glass and top with soda water.

If you're wondering why this cocktail is strained, and served without frozen water, it's because it was designed to be a quick refresher - a drink to be downed in shortish order rather than pondered over at length.

It's certainly refreshing, thanks to the soda water, which along with the sugar manages to balance the acidity of half a lemon without trouble. It's not overly sweet, though, providing more of a plain, savoury taste. I keep coming back to the word refreshing, as indeed I will keep coming back to the Gin Fizz.

MORE: The Gin Fizz may become a Whiskey Fizz, Brandy Fizz or Rum Fizz with a small but crucial tweak of ingredients.

Martini (Hendrick's Gin)

It seems unnatural to have maintained a drinks blog for this many months without having made a single martini. This cocktail was a favourite of mine a while back, when my gin of choice was Plymouth. Having recently discovered Hendrick's, I thought I'd try out a recipe from that distiller's website, using a cucumber garnish rather than the usual olive or lemon twist. The result (pictured above) was ridiculously good. The debate over the most effective proportions of gin to dry vermouth will continue to rage, but I felt those recommended here (two parts G to one part V) worked just fine.

Martini

45ml (1.5oz) Hendrick's Gin

22.5ml (0.75oz) Noilly Prat dry vermouth
Slice of cucumber

Stir gin and vermouth over ice cubes in mixing glass. Strain into martini glass. Drop in a cucumber slice.

Saffron Gin

I was birthday-gifted this bottle of Saffron Gin more than two years ago and, as you can see from the picture above, it's still not empty. That's largely because I've always struggled with the taste of saffron, which I would characterise as musty and bitter. Then, recently, I pulled out the bottle for a night of Cornish-themed drinking (saffron and Cornwall go together) and tried using it in place of regular gin to make variations on the Gin & Tonic and the Negroni. The results were surprisingly good, particularly for the Negroni (here renamed the Saffroni), with the bitter apperitif positively tingling with flavour. It would seem certain types of booze just need a killer app.

Saffron Gin & Tonic

60ml (2oz) Saffron gin
90ml (3oz) tonic water

Two dashes orange bitters

Orange slice to garnish

Pour gin and bitters over plenty of ice. Stir plenty. Add tonic water and stir again. Garnish with orange slice.

Saffroni

15ml (0.5oz) Saffron Gin

15ml (0.5oz) sweet vermouth

15ml (0.5oz) Campari

Two dashes orange bitters

Orange peel to garnish

Stir ingredients with ice then strain into a small glass and add orange twist.

Mayfair

This recipe is brought to you by Dale DeGroff and Hendrick's Gin. Simple, subtle and tasty - a perfect gin vehicle.

Mayfair

50ml (1.6oz) Hendrick's Gin
20ml (0.6oz) simple syrup
15ml (0.5oz) fresh lemon juice
2 slices cucumber

Prepare a martini glass by wetting the outside of the rim with lime, then frosting the rim with a mixture of large-grain salt and dried thyme. Add the gin, simple syrup, lemon juice and one slice of cucumber to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake well. Strain into a chilled martini glass and garnish with a second, thin slice of cucumber.

The salt/thyme rim took a moment to appreciate, but it does work rather well with the contents of the glass, countering some of the sweetness. Adding a slice of cucumber to the shaker is a masterful stroke, producing a subtle hint of green fruit which also serves to complement the cucumber-infused gin. I might even try a couple of slices next time. Rock and roll.

Aviation

Seeing this photo (above) makes me smile, since it reminds me of the night I spent roaming the streets of Paris looking for lemons. It came about after I picked up a bottle of Luxardo Maraschino liqueur from a strange little deli rammed full of curiosities and booze. This clear, dry cherry drink (32% vol) tastes floral and bittersweet - not particularly pleasant by itself. As a constituent ingredient in a cocktail, however, it comes highly recommended. Scouring the interweb for a recipe to test it out, I came across the gin-based Aviation, which I thought at the very least had an appealing name. And so, on our way back to T and A's flat after a night out, I stopped off at a number of corner stores and used some fairly dodgy French to procure lemons and gin. The proper Aviation recipe also calls for a touch of Creme de Violette, a liqueur made from violet flowers, but sadly it wasn't to hand, I thought I'd already shown willing by getting hold of the Maraschino, and, frankly, life isn't long enough for this shit.

Aviation

60ml (2oz) gin
15ml (0.5oz) Maraschino liqueur
15ml (0.5oz) lemon juice
Lemon peel

Pour ingredients into a mixing glass with plenty of ice and stir well. Strain into a serving glass and garnish with a twist of lemon peel.

I have slightly hazy memories of this one, having constructed it under the influence of French wine. I do recall a sharp, floral drink with a charming kick (the best kind). We barely used any Maraschino, but with good reason - a rather reckless attempt to get more cherry by adding more of the liqueur spoiled the balance of the drink somewhat (don't mess with the ratios!). I will now resist the urge to conclude this post with gratuitous references to lift-offs, flying successes and top guns. There.

Creamy Cocktails

Drowning in double cream left over from a couple of tasty home-made treats, I decided to experiment with a couple of creamy drinks recipes from the The Savoy Cocktail Book.

Belmont

15ml (0.25oz) grenadine
45ml (1.5oz) gin
30ml (1oz) fresh cream

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass.

The Belmont - described somewhere as "a beautiful cocktail" - looks fairly horrible (above), but strangely the cream and gin balance rather well, while the pomegranate-based grenadine is not as sweet as I expected here.

Cordova

30ml (1oz) dry gin

15ml (0.25oz) sweet vermouth

1 dash absinthe
1 teaspoon fresh cream

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake vigorously. Strain into a cocktail glass.

Stronger and richer, but also thinner, than the Belmont, with the absinthe providing a lovely aftertaste (right).

Bombay Sapphire Vs Gordon's

What could be more exciting than a blind gin tasting? If you know the answer, keep it to yourself, I'm just not interested. Having been dealt glasses with generous pours of Bombay Sapphire in one and Gordon's in the other, but not knowing which was which, I sipped and pondered for a good while before deciding on their relative merits. And here, without ado, are the results:

Bombay Sapphire - Warming, spicy-sweet, many flavours, explosive, long lingering finish.

Gordon's - Dull, one-note, juniper, smooth, dry.

I realised afterwards that the Bombay I had tasted was the imported duty free stuff (47% abv!), which may have given it an unfair advantage and left the 37.5% Gordon's tasting rather conservative by dint of its sheer weakness. But the rules were clear(ish) and there is only one reasonable conclusion to draw: Bombay is Great and Gordon's is Boring.

Sosho

2 Tabernacle Street
London
EC2A 4LU

Since I began dipping my toe into the world of cocktail bars I've realised there are two main types: the fake and the excellent. When it comes to drinks, the fakes - alas, they are plentiful - prefer to use pre-mixed solutions to construct sugary, low-alcohol rip-offs, while the genuine articles lift your spirits with boozy, fiddly creations which one might struggle to reproduce at home on the first or even second attempt.

While I wouldn't want to vouch for Sosho (a fancyish bar/club on the edge of the City) on the evidence of my single 45-minute stop-off, very early on a Saturday evening, I daresay it can make proper drinks.

I ordered a Tropical Nirvana (Plymouth gin, muddled fresh banana and strawberries, agave syrup, honey and maraschino) because I wanted to work out, in a reverse engineering kind of way, how to use banana and other fruits without turning a drink into a sludgy mess. The result (above left) was perfectly smooth and fruity without being noticeably viscous or too-sweet.

M got a Space Gin Smash (above right) - Tanqueray gin shaken with muddled grapes, elderflower, fresh mint, lemon and apple juices. "Refreshing", was the response - satisfied if not overwhelmed.

The other thing I've realised about the world of cocktail bars is they have their own celebrities. So Sosho - of the Match Bar family - boasts of its links with American mixologist Dale DeGroff, the "king of cocktails", who "made the Cosmopolitan famous" (thanks, Dale) and seems to have had a hand in the drinks list here (my Tropical Nirvana was one of his designs). In a land of fake cocktail bars it helps to have some quality assurance and the man DeGroff may yet be the Kitemark of mixed drinks.

UPDATE: Since I posted this it appears Sosho has been destroyed by a fire. Damn shame. At least no one was hurt.