Category: Cocktails

This is an easy chocolate Martini recipe with a few easy replacements.

I use both a creme de cacao and a dark chocolate liqueur, but the former can be doubled to replace the latter; the single cream can be replaced with double cream or even milk (I’d not go below full-fat 2″blue-top” milk).

This is a variation of the vodka Martini replacing the vermouth with limoncello.

This is a variation of the vodka Martini recipe adding some freshly squeezed orange juice and replacing the vermouth with an orange liqueur such as Cointreau.

In all honesty, the right way to make a martini, shaken or stirred, is whichever way you prefer making or drinking it.

We polled on Twitter whether people liked their Martini’s shaken or stirred:

And got an overwhelming “shaken” verdict.

James Bond is noted for ordering a “vodka Martini, shaken not stirred”, but there is a general recommendation as to whether a Martini should be shaken or stirred.

The rough rule of thumb is that a Martini just using alcohol should be stirred and one using other ingredients, such as fruit juice or simple syrup, should be shaken. This is so that the other ingredients are fully mixed in which is easier when shaking.

So, according to this rule of thumb, suave as he looks, Bond should be asking for his vodka Martini stirred, not shaken.

However, going back to the opening sentence, the “right” way of making a Martini is whichever way you prefer to make and drink it.

A simple vodka Martini often mentioned in the Bond series of movies; Bond has his “shaken, not stirred” (except for the Connery Bond who has his “shaken, not shtirred”.

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A vodka Martini had been requested in more than one Bond movie by characters other than Bond, before Sean Connery as Bond in the third Bond film, Goldfinger (1964) ordered one.

A vodka martini, also known as a vodkatini or kangaroo cocktail, is a cocktail made with vodka and vermouth, a variation of a martini cocktail.

A vodka martini is made by combining vodka, dry vermouth and ice in a cocktail shaker or mixing glass. The ingredients are chilled, either by stirring or shaking, then strained and served “straight up” (without ice) in a chilled cocktail glass.

The martini is a cocktail made with gin and vermouth, and garnished with an olive or a lemon twist. Over the years, the martini has become one of the best-known mixed alcoholic beverages.

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H. L. Mencken called the martini “the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet”, and E. B. White called it “the elixir of quietude”.

The exact origin of the martini is unclear. The name may derive from the Martini brand of vermouth. Another popular theory suggests it evolved from a cocktail called the Martinez served sometime in the early 1860s at the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco, which people frequented before taking an evening ferry to the nearby town of Martinez, California. Alternatively, residents of Martinez say a bartender in their town created the drink, while another source indicates that the drink was named after the town.

Numerous bartending guides of the late 19th century contained recipes for cocktails similar to the modern-day martini. For example, Harry Johnson’s Bartenders’ Manual (1888) listed a recipe for a “Martini Cocktail” that consisted in part of half a wine glass of Old Tom gin and a half a wine glass of vermouth.
Fill the glass up with ice
2 or 3 dashes of gum syrup
2 or 3 dashes of bitters; (Boker’s genuine only)
1 dash of Curaçao
1⁄2 wine glassful [1 fl oz] of Old Tom gin
1⁄2 wine glassful [1 fl oz] of [sweet/Italian] vermouth
Stir up well with a spoon, strain it into a fancy cocktail glass, squeeze a piece of lemon peel on top, and serve.

The first dry martini is sometimes linked to the name of a bartender who concocted the drink at the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York City in 1911 or 1912. The “Marguerite Cocktail”, first described in 1904, could be considered an early form of the dry martini, because it was a 2:1 mix of Plymouth dry gin and dry vermouth, with a dash of orange bitters.

During Prohibition in the United States, during the mid-20th century, the relative ease of illegal gin manufacture led to the martini’s rise as the locally predominant cocktail. With the repeal of Prohibition, and the ready availability of quality gin, the drink became progressively drier. In the 1970s and ’80s, the martini came to be seen as old-fashioned and was replaced by more intricate cocktails and wine spritzers, but the mid-1990s saw a resurgence in the drink and numerous new versions.

Martini (cocktail) – from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

For this recipe I’m using a “classic” Martini recipe, although one that differs from the one above.

The classic Martinez cocktail is widely regarded as a direct precursor to the Martini.

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The true origin of the Martinez cocktail is unclear. Two early stories attribute the making of a cocktail named the Martinez to bartender Jerry Thomas at the Occidental Hotel or by a bartender by the name of Richelieue who worked at a saloon in Martinez, California. Both stories are difficult to verify because records of drinks at the time are missing or incomplete, but the 1887 edition of Thomas’ The Bar-Tender’s Guide includes a recipe for the Martinez. It calls for a pony of Old Tom gin, a glass of vermouth, two dashes of Maraschino, and a dash of Boker’s Bitters with ice, garnished with a slice of lemon.

A 1884 drink guide by O.H. Byron released just a few years earlier also listed a recipe for a cocktail called the Martinez by saying only: “Same as Manhattan, only you substitute gin for whisky.” The book contained two recipes for a Manhattan, one of which called for 2 dashes of curaçao, 2 dashes of Angostura bitters, 1/2 a wine-glass whisky and 1/2 a wine-glass of Italian vermouth.

A later 1888 guide by Harry Johnson, the New and Improved Illustrated Bartender’s Manual, listed a drink that may have been incorrectly spelled as the “martine”, without the letter “z”. Over time the alcoholic drinks further evolved regarding both their ingredient construction and names to become what were eventually considered as two different cocktails, the Martinez and the Martini.

Martinez (cocktail) – from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another story I’ve seen online says the miner ws in Martinez and asked for a celebratory drink to be made as their was no champagne; when he travelled to San Francisco he visited the Occidental Hotel and asked for the drink to be replicated.
There are a number of recipes available for the Martinez, but I am going with the IBA (International Bartenders Association) official version (this is the recipe included in the for use in the annual World Cocktail Competition (WCC).

I’m thinking the #FridayNightCocktails on the 25^th February will be martinis unless someone would like to suggest something else?

The 6th cocktail of the Friday Night Cocktail is the Tennessee Highball, a very popular cocktail pre-Prohibition which showed off the quality of Tennessee Whiskey. Made using the Jack Daniel’s Single Barrel Tennessee whiskey, this cocktail is best described as a cross between a highball and a sour.

The fifth cocktail of the Friday Night Cocktails on the 18th February is the Tennessee Honey Snakebite Shot which uses the Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey Whiskey Liqueur.