Aviation
45 ml Gin, 15 ml Maraschino liqueur, 15 ml Lemon juice, 7.5 ml Crème de violette, 1 Maraschino cherry
Photo: Martinez Cocktail by Will Shenton · CC BY-SA 3.0 · All credits
Ingredients
Measures below are multiplied for 6 drinks. Unmeasurable amounts such as “a splash” are left as written.
- 270 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 270 ml line. Gin
- 180 ml Measuring jug A measuring jug: pour to the 180 ml line. Sweet vermouth
- 45 ml Jigger One small side (25 ml) of a standard jigger, plus a tablespoon and a teaspoon. Maraschino liqueur
- 12 dashes Bottle Twelve quick shakes of the bottle - each a few drops, about a millilitre. Orange bitters
- 6 twists Lemon twist (optional)
Measured in Millilitres (UK). Sign in to read these in American measures. Print a kitchen card at this size.
What the jigger, the spoons and the jug hold, in millilitres and in fluid ounces, is on the measures reference.
Quick version
- Stir everything over ice and strain into a chilled coupe.
Method
Pitcher (6 drinks)Pitcher (6 drinks) - about 498 ml of measured ingredients, before ice and dilution.
Timings and per-glass steps below are written for one drink and are not scaled. A full jug takes longer to chill, so stir or shake until it is properly cold rather than by the clock, and pour over fresh ice one glass at a time.
- Fill a mixing glass with ice and add the gin, vermouth, maraschino and bitters.
- Stir for 30 seconds - longer than feels necessary, until the outside of the glass is properly cold.
- Strain into a chilled coupe.
- Twist a lemon peel over the top and drop it in.
Serve it
Volumes in this story are multiplied for the size above, along with the ingredients. Years, ratios and the capacities of glasses and jugs are left as written.
Martinez
This is very possibly the ancestor of the Martini, which makes it one of the most important drinks in the book. It appears in the 1880s in California and New York, and it was famous enough to be ordered by name for decades before it fell out of fashion in the twentieth century - partly because the recipe was written down differently in every book, and half of them taste better than the others.
Getting it right
That little spoonful of maraschino is what makes this a Martinez rather than a gin and vermouth, and it is easy to overdo: it is there to sweeten the edges of the herb, not to be tasted on its own. Use a rich, spiced sweet vermouth and a gin with some botanicals to it, and give it a proper stir.
Tasting notes
Rounder and softer than the drink it became, with the vermouth's herbs leading and a cherry-stone note from the maraschino. If you like a Martini but find it a bit austere, this is the door to walk through.
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50 ml Gin, 25 ml Lemon juice, 12.5 ml Simple syrup, 15 ml Crème de mûre, 2 berries Blackberry