San Jose Martini

Ingredients:

• 3 oz Gin
• 1/2 oz Dry Vermouth
• Teaspoon Menjure de Ancho Reyes (Ancho Chile Liqueur)
• Olive

Take a classic American martini and add a dash of ancho chile liqueur from the Pueblo de Zaragoza en Mexico and you have a drink that is quintessentially San Jose, California.

San Jose, my adopted home town, was home to Costanoan Indians when Spaniards arrived in 1776. It was part of the Mexican state of California until 1846 when settlers revolted and declared California an independent republic. Then the territory was annexed by the United States and became a U.S. state in 1850. San Jose is proud of all these heritages. They are reflected in our language(s), food, architecture and more.

The use of chiles for flavor came from Native Americans in Mexico (likely dating to before the Mayans and Aztecs.) And today my neighbors and I use salsa and chile sauces like the rest of the USA uses salt or ketchup.

Ancho Reyes does provide a kick but it isn't super hot. Instead it gives the San Jose Martini a warm, smoky aroma and roasted chile flavor.

Dry Martini

How have I gotten this far without giving you a classic, dry martini? For those of us who like gin, I mean really like gin, then this is the ticket. But you have to follow the instructions carefully to achieve the perfect cocktail!

Ingredients:

• 3 oz Gin (Tanqueray, Bombay Sapphire, Gordons, Beefeater and even others could work)
• Dry Vermouth (ONLY Noilly Prat or Dolin will do)
• Optional: Twist of lemon
• Optional: Olive

If your vermouth has been refrigerated, take it out of the refrigerator and allow it to warm to room temperature.

Prepare ice. I recommend 5 small cubes, approx 1 inch (2.54 cm) per side. If your cubes are too big, cut them to size with a jeweler's saw or laser cutter. Gently lower the cubes into a shaker being careful not to damage them.

Pour the gin into the shaker. Pause for 15-20 seconds to allow the gin to settle. This prevents "bruising" that many fear when it is shaken.

While the gin rests, open the vermouth and allow it to breath briefly.

Pass the vermouth within 2-3 feet (60 to 90 centimeters) of the shaker. Ensure the cap is still off the vermouth. If more vermouth is desired this can be repeated up to 3 times but be careful not to move too fast or cause splashing.

Shake for at least 30 - 45 seconds. After shaking, you may allow the martini to again rest but for no more than 15 seconds to prevent the ice from watering down the drink.

Pour your martini into a tall cocktail glass. If you like you may garnish with either lemon twist or olive.

Enjoy!

(Note: if you find you have allowed too much vermouth vapor to penetrate the martini, simply pour it out and try again. This time hold the vermouth farther away from the shaker. If the taste of vermouth is still too powerful, try waiving the vermouth over the shaker with the cap still on the bottle.)

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?!!