For too long, the martini has gotten a bad rap. Some say it’s just an excuse to drink straight spirits; others say it’s so ill-defined it can mean just about anything.
To be fair, the latter is quite true. The word “martini” has been adopted (or possibly appropriated, depending on who you ask) into a million different things; hardly any of them have much in common with one another.
For that matter, the former can be true, too. The martini, in its more traditional preparations, can be extremely spirit-forward. But that doesn’t mean it has to be a tough swallow, even for those who don’t particularly care for straight spirits.
With the millions of -tinis out there, we’ve attempted to distil some of the basics: the most common varieties you ought to know, and how to make them.
Before you begin
Keep your gin in the freezer. An ice-cold martini is a good martini. Anything made with room-temperature stuff gets overly watered down when you mix it with ice. Super cold spirits also have a silkier mouthfeel.
You might hear some say that gin’s flavours get dulled in the freezer, but we really don’t think that makes sense, considering your final mix will also be near zero degrees.
Likewise, keep your vermouth in the fridge. (Its alcohol content isn’t high enough to prevent it from turning solid in the freezer.) More importantly, vermouth is wine, which means you have a limited window after opening it before it turns nasty. Keeping it in the fridge means you’ll get to enjoy it for longer.
Martinis are traditionally served in martini glasses. The long stem keeps heat from your hands away from the drink, so it stays cold for longer. The wide brim opens the drink up, so its aromas – botanicals from gin, oils from lemon, or whatever else you put in – get picked up more easily.
Coupe glasses and Nick & Nora glasses are also common, and somewhat less prone to spillage with their more rounded bowls.
Keep it simple: Dry martini
The dry martini is about as easy as it gets. Some gin and a little dry vermouth are all you need for the base of endless possibilities.
We like using our favourites, Tanqueray No 10 and Dolin Vermouth de Chambery Dry, for how they play with each other: slightly fruity, a little sweet and just a touch savoury. It’s a great catch-all base for anything else you might want to introduce later on.
Ingredients
- 75ml Tanqueray No 10 gin
- 15ml Dolin Vermouth de Chambery Dry
- 1 block of ice
Tools
- 1 martini glass (or coupe glass, or Nick & Nora glass)
- 1 jigger
- 1 mixing glass
- 1 barspoon
- 1 strainer
Putting it together
- Measure and pour the gin and vermouth into a mixing glass with ice.
- Stir for about 20 seconds, until everything is cold and there is a light amount of condensation covering the entire outer surface of the glass.
- Strain the mixture into a martini glass.
Once you’ve got the basic dry martini down, play around with the proportions of gin and vermouth. If you like something drier, use a little less vermouth. You could even go as far as Blake Lively in A Simple Favour: just swish vermouth in the glass before pouring it out.
After finding your preferred mix, add any garnish you have on hand. The classics are either a twist of lemon peel or a couple of green olives (more on those, later).
The cleaner cousin: Vodka martini
The vodka martini is the gin martini’s decidedly plainer relative. Instead of the botanicals from gin, you get the simplicity of vodka. The construction is otherwise entirely the same.
It’s especially important here that you use at least a decent vodka, since it comes out front and centre.
We use Belvedere, which we find smoother and easier to drink than most others. A martini made with really cruddy vodka can actually singe your eyebrows. (We made the stupid mistake of once trying an Absolut martini. Worst. Decision. Ever.)
Ingredients
- 75ml Belvedere vodka
- 15ml Dolin Vermouth de Chambery Dry
- 1 block of ice
Tools
- 1 martini glass (or coupe glass, or Nick & Nora glass)
- 1 jigger
- 1 mixing glass
- 1 barspoon
- 1 strainer
Putting it together
- Measure and pour the vodka and vermouth into a mixing glass with ice.
- Stir for about 20 seconds, until everything is cold and there is a light amount of condensation covering the entire outer surface of the glass.
- Strain the mixture into a martini glass.
Because the vodka is plainer, the vodka martini really benefits from the addition of bitters and garnishes. Go sweet, savoury, herbal or anything in between; it all depends on what mood you’re in.
Olives, olives, olives: Dirty martini
When we first started drinking, the dirty martini was sidelined as an “uncle’s drink”. Barely anyone ate the olives that came on pizza; who’d be having them with cocktails?
Things have changed since then, thankfully. The drink has had a resurgence in popularity as folks relearn the power of umami. (Or perhaps we’ve just become the very uncles we imagined.)
The dirty martini can be made with either a gin or vodka base, though we think gin’s botanical notes (particularly with a London dry gin, such as our pick for this recipe from No 3) make for a more interesting drink.
Of course, most gins will be fine. Just look out for clashing notes; for instance, Beefeater 24 makes for a really bizarre dirty martini, we think because of all the tea in there.
We don’t have any olives we particularly love or hate, but we’re currently using a bottle of green olives from Iliada and they’re good. They’re pitted, so that’s one less annoyance to deal with while we’re drinking. They’re also under S$10 a jar and widely available online; we got ours with our regular grocery delivery.
We included in this recipe an optional bit of olive bitters, which really helps to highlight the drink’s savoury, vegetal flavours.
We found ours in a sample kit from The Bitter Truth. The 20ml bottle has lasted us a decent amount of time, but it looks like a restock will soon be in order. (We’ll probably shoot for the full-sized bottle pictured on the left.)
Ingredients
- 75ml No 3 London dry gin
- 15ml Dolin Vermouth de Chambery Dry
- 20ml olive brine
- 1 block of ice
- 3 olives for garnish (or as many as you’d like)
- 2 dashes The Bitter Truth olive bitters (optional)
Tools
- 1 martini glass (or coupe glass, or Nick & Nora glass)
- 1 jigger
- 1 mixing glass
- 1 barspoon
- 1 strainer
- 1 toothpick or skewer
Putting it together
- Measure and pour the gin, vermouth, brine and bitters into a mixing glass with ice.
- Stir for about 20 seconds, until everything is cold and there is a light amount of condensation covering the entire outer surface of the glass.
- Strain the mixture into a martini glass.
- Garnish with olives threaded on a toothpick or skewer.
Citrus first: Lemon drop martini
Behold, the first martini to exclude vermouth altogether on this list. The lemon drop is a spin on the vodka martini that replaces the fortified wine with orange liqueur, also known as triple sec. A bit of lemon juice makes this a perfectly sippable sweet-sour combination.
The standard recipe doesn’t call for a garnish, but we’ve included in our version an optional twist of lemon peel; the expressed oils on the rim of the glass really bring out the lemony flavours. Some recipes call for a sugar rim, but that’s just asking for an ant infestation, in our view.
Ingredients
- 60ml Belvedere vodka
- 15ml Cointreau
- 15ml simple syrup
- 30ml lemon juice
- 1 block of ice
- 1 lemon peel (optional)
Tools
- 1 martini glass (or coupe glass, or Nick & Nora glass)
- 1 jigger
- 1 shaker
- 1 barspoon
- 1 strainer
Putting it together
- Measure and pour the vodka, Cointreau, simple syrup and lemon juice into a shaker with ice.
- Shake for about 20 seconds, until everything is cold and there is a light amount of condensation covering the entire outer surface of the shaker.
- Strain the mixture into a martini glass.
- Express a lemon peel over the rim and leave it as a garnish.
The strong stuff: Vesper
Technically, the vesper is a separate drink, but we thought we’d include it, since James Bond’s rendition of a martini is quite likely the most famous cocktail recipe of all time.
The drink is almost entirely spirit, with just a bit of Lillet blanc to balance things out. Lillet blanc is a white wine-based aperitif that’s a little sweet and citrusy, with a slight touch of quinine bitterness.
Ingredients
- 60ml Tanqueray No 10 gin
- 30ml Belvedere vodka
- 20ml Lillet blanc
- 1 lemon peel
Tools
- 1 martini glass (or coupe glass, or Nick & Nora glass)
- 1 jigger
- 1 shaker
- 1 barspoon
- 1 strainer
Putting it together
- Measure and pour the gin, vodka and Lillet blanc into a shaker with ice.
- Shake for about 20 seconds, until everything is cold and there is a light amount of condensation covering the entire outer surface of the shaker.
- Strain the mixture into a martini glass.
- Express a lemon peel over the rim and leave it as a garnish.
Best fruit forward: Lychee martini
An old favourite among countless sweet lovers, the lychee martini is a surprisingly easy drink to make. In terms of construction, the drink falls somewhere between a dirty martini and a lemon drop: There’s still vermouth in the mix the way we make it, but there’s also a little something a little sweet to balance things out.
Some versions call for St Germain elderflower liqueur, but we prefer ours without. We find retaining the vermouth and using syrup from the canned lychees makes for the most lychee-forward cocktail – no surprises.
Our favourite canned lychees come from Hosen. We don’t really think there’s a big difference across brands, but we have had a few overly mushy ones from others.
Ingredients
- 60ml Smirnoff vodka
- 15ml Dolin Vermouth de Chambery Dry
- 30ml canned lychee syrup
- 5ml lemon juice (optional)
- 1 block of ice
- 2 canned lychees (or as many as you’d like)
Tools
- 1 martini glass (or coupe glass, or Nick & Nora glass)
- 1 jigger
- 1 shaker
- 1 barspoon
- 1 strainer
Putting it together
- Measure and pour the vodka, vermouth, syrup and lemon juice into a shaker with ice.
- Shake for about 20 seconds, until everything is cold and there is a light amount of condensation covering the entire outer surface of the shaker.
- Strain the mixture into a martini glass.
- Garnish with lychees threaded on a toothpick or skewer.
Staying up all night: Espresso martini
Espresso martinis can be a nightmare to prepare. Chiefly, the traditional recipe calls for a strong, freshly brewed shot of espresso. For those of us who don’t have an espresso machine, that already creates a major problem.
Most modern recipes, however, call for cold-brew coffee instead. This is a lot easier to come by, especially if you live within close range of the seemingly infinite specialty coffeeshops in Singapore.
For the vodka, we like using Smirnoff for its neutrality. While Kahlua is the more common option, we think Mr Black is less sweet and gives a more punchy coffee flavour.
Usually, you’ll find espresso martinis garnished with three coffee beans. We’ve honestly never cared for them, especially since we don’t have any other reason to buy coffee beans.
Ingredients
- 60ml Smirnoff vodka
- 30ml Mr Black coffee liqueur
- 15ml simple syrup
- 30ml cold-brew coffee
- 1 block of ice
Tools
- 1 martini glass (or coupe glass, or Nick & Nora glass)
- 1 jigger
- 1 shaker
- 1 barspoon
- 1 strainer
Putting it together
- Measure and pour the vodka, coffee liqueur, syrup and coffee into a shaker with ice.
- Shake for about 20 seconds, until everything is cold and there is a light amount of condensation covering the entire outer surface of the shaker.
- Strain the mixture into a martini glass.
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