The Bloody Carrie (Raspberry Martini)

"Bloody Carrie" Martini raspberry martini.

Tonight's experiment: we give you the "Bloody Carrie" (thanks to Heidi Randall for the name):

• 3 oz Gin (Tanqueray)
• 1 oz Raspberry Syrup
• Twist of lemon
• Shake over ice then pour

I hate to admit this but tonight's recipe was the result of cleaning out my refrigerator. A bottle of Cascade Conserves brand Willamette Red Raspberry Syrup has sat untouched for probably 10 years. The syrup is supposed to be great for pancakes and on top of vanilla ice cream. Sadly, those are not things that I have at home very often. So it was headed for the trash. But I looked for an expiration date on the bottle and there was none. The seal had never been broken. I figured gin should kill any bugs if there were any!

Despite these dubious beginnings, I think it created an incredible drink. Temperatures in San Jose were in the 90's (33+C). The day beckoned for something cool, crisp and refreshing.

Our mixer--Cascade Conserves Willamette Red Raspberry Syrup.

Select an appropriate cocktail glass - Seneca leaded crystal in this case.

We're pouring Tanqueray tonight.

About this much gin.

The raspberry gave a nice red hue as it was poured. 

Add syrup until the color and taste seem right.

Pour the contents of the glass into a shaker with ice and shake.

When the sides of the shaker are nice and cold, pour the contents back into the glass.

Bloody Carrie Martini with gin & raspberry syrup.

I ended up adding some more syrup to the mix, increasing my original dose from about 1/2 ounce to a full ounce or maybe even a bit more. This particular syrup is a natural raspberry puree with very little added sugar (75% fruit.) So at 1/2 ounce there was just a hint of flavor and not much sweetness. At a full ounce I could taste the fruit and the drink remained crisp and refreshing. The color went from a something that looked like pink grapefruit at 1/2 ounce of syrup to something that looked like a blood orange at a little over an ounce of syrup.
 

Bloody Carrie Martini

Balsamic Martini, Take 2

Tonight was redemption for the awful attempt of this martini last week.

Balsamic Martini:

• 3 oz of Gin (I used Tanqueray)
• 1/4 - 1/2 oz 3 Dry Vermouth (I used Gallo for very mild flavor)
• 2-3 drops fine Balsamic Vinegar (I used Bellindora Balsamic Fig)
• Twist of Lemon
• 2-3 Castelvetrano Olives

The balsamic vinegar gives a subtle, kind of savory and still sweet undertone to the gin and vermouth. It pairs well with the olives. I put some Castelvetrano olives in this time. They are not a perfect martini olive in most cases--small, a bit soft and the flavor is very mild and more sweet than other olives. But they match perfectly with this drink.

Less Than Phenomenal. . .

The last two nights I've done things different than normal. And it did not turn out well. I did things differently so that I could record recipes and take images of the martinis. It has been a disaster.

I don't measure drinks. I pour gin into the glass until "looks right." What does that mean? I don't know. I just pour until the glass has an aesthetic amount of liquid in it with room for my mixer. In some martini glasses I think it means 2 ounces, others 4 ounces. My average is somewhere in-between. Trying to use an actual shot measure is screwing me up! So, take any of my recipes and assume that the measurement given is +/- at least a half an ounce. Really!

Two nights ago was the first debacle: I attempted one of my favorite martinis. But instead of just pouring like I usually do, I took a bartender's measure and carefully poured exactly 3 ounces of gin, 1/2 ounce of vermouth and 1/2 ounce of balsamic vinegar. Dear god it was awful. This is usually a subtle drink: you take a classic martini but to give it a savory undertone with a hint of color and a nice complexity you add a hint of balsamic vinegar, 2 to 3 drops. A half ounce of the same balsamic when combined with gin produced an ugly brown liquid that tasted like cleaning solvent.

Creating great drinks, like creating any great food, requires tasting, adjusting, trial and error.

So here's pictures of great ingredients that produced a bad drink:

It is NOT supposed to look like this.

Tonight something similar happened, this time with my very favorite martini. Since I've posted several times using Gilbey's Gin I thought I'd use something else with a fancy blue bottle and a unique flavor profile. It wasn't horrible. But it wasn't my favorite either. The gin competed with the mixer instead of complementing it. I should have stuck with Gilbey's.

On a somewhat related note, a friend posted a news report on Facebook saying that Bombay Sapphire Gin was being recalled because the alcohol content was 2 times what was claimed on the label. Ha! What a great marketing ploy. My response was, "let's hurry to buy them all up before they can be pulled from the shelves!" Sapphire is a very nice gin but I do not think it is all that special. But I seriously considered running out to buy some! Well done!

Lestat Martini

Lestat Martini:

• 3 oz of Tanqueray Gin
• 1/2 oz St. Germain (elderflower liqueur)
• 3 Shakes Cayenne Pepper powder

Laissez le bon temps rouler! Combine gin with a splash of St. Germain (there are other brands of elderflower liqueur but I haven't tried them yet.) Shake mixture over ice and strain into glass. Sprinkle liberally with cayenne pepper. 

Spicy, sweet and perfect on a steamy summer night. This is the drink Lestat uses to wind down after a long night's hunt.

Cayenne Pepper
By André Karwath aka Aka - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16319 

Peruvian Kiss

Barsol Perfect Love Martini:

• 3 oz of No. 209 Gin
• 0.5 oz BarSol Perfecto Amor Aperitif
• Twist of Lemon
• Shake over ice & pour

BarSol Perfecto Amor from Peru claims it is "the ultimate premium artisanal wine." It is a sweet and savoury aperitif that mates perfectly to a flavorful gin. The bottle says it is a pisco, Peru and Chile's take on brandy. The taste of Perfecto Amor is a bit like a tawny port. It seems syrupy but with complexity that keeps it interesting. You will find tastes like raw sugar cane, ripe fruit, nuts, black tea, musk, cantaloupe and even aged beef. BarSol Perfecto Amor has a carmel color and when mixed with gin gives a slight yellow/amberish color about like ginger ale. BarSol produces a smooth and easy sipping martini great for soothing a long, stressful day.

  

Classic Martini

Tonight's recipe is just the classic American Martini: gin & vermouth:

• 3 oz. Gilbey's Gin 
• 0.5 oz. Dolin dry vermouth 
• Lemon Twist 
• 2 Spanish Queen olives 
• Shake over ice & pour into cocktail glass

Wilson & Chloe help pick a glass.

Gin.

I buy a lot of gin. I'll try just about any gin. And I like most of them. But for a classic american martini I prefer classic gins. You won't go wrong with Tanqueray, Gilbey's, Bombay, Beafeater's or Gordon's. We want clean juniper taste and we want to be able to taste the vermouth, lemon and olive. Seagrams offers gin in a beautiful bottle at a reasonable price. And it is awful. New Amsterdam has a dramatic bottle. I tried for months to find a way to drink it. Nope. It is disgusting. Tonight we are using Gilbey's. The Gilbey's recipe dates to the 1870s. The reason it has lasted so long is that the flavor still beats many of the very best on the market. And the bonus is that Gilbey's price is reasonable.

Vermouth.

The best vermouth I've found is from Noilly Prat. . . and it is a version you can't buy it in the United States. If you can find the straw-colored dry vermouth they sell in France, it produces the finest martini I've ever had. Noilly Prat tried to sell it in the USA for a couple of years and Americans complained that their martinis were no longer pure, clear gin. Noilly Prat gave up and returned to a clear, bland formula for the USA that is no better than Gallo. So don't waste your money. The closest match I've found to the French Noilly Prat is Dolin. So tonight's martini features Dolin Dry Vermouth.

Olive or Twist?

Lemon oil from a twist makes a martini! I like a wide, irregular shred of peel. The most important part of this step is to hold the lemon rind over the glass and twist it. We want to release a spray of lemon oil into the glass for the intense flavor and aroma. Wipe the peel around the rim of the glass too. It makes a big difference.

When you order a martini, bartenders ask if you want an olive or a twist? Or?!!

Martini Glasses

The best martini glasses are not martini glasses. They were originally designed one or two centuries ago as champagne or sherbet glasses and were adopted as a cocktail glass in the early 1900s.

My favorites are Seneca cut crystal. The Seneca Glass Company existed from 1892 to 1983 and made crystal for the White House, the rich and celebrities. If you want Seneca crystal today you will have to search places like eBay and Replacements Ltd. Try search terms "champagne" and "sherbet" in addition to "cocktail." The champagne stem is often slightly taller than the sherbet stem and larger than the "cocktail" glass. Either can work but I prefer what I think of as the classic martini glass with longer stems and a triangular profile. Even so, some of the martini glasses in my collection have curved sides, shorter stems and even no stem but always a dramatic form.

Photo of Seneca Glass Co. Richelieu stemware
shamelessly stolen from jha on CollectorsWeekly.com

Photo of Seneca Glass Co. Richelieu stemware
shamelessly stolen from jha on CollectorsWeekly.com

Links to Seneca Martini Glasses at Replacements Ltd.:

Despite all the images and links on this page, I don't have a financial relationship with Replacements, Ltd. However I've bought a lot of crystal from them. They are a great source. When they have a sale, you can buy the finest cut crystal for about the same price as cheap glass anywhere else.