(Ketel One Botanical) Cucumber Mint Martini

Now that Ketel One is making this Botanical series with infusions of fresh ingredients, it's only fitting to tick off a few Martini variations using the new spirits. A Martini only requires a neutral spirit and vermouth, preferably vodka or gin, and some kind of fresh garnish. Cucumber and mint are a pleasingly fresh addition to the Martini cannon, and Ketel One's Botanical blend is a welcome helpmate in this regard. Open the bottle and you have everything you need. I do recommend using a large helping of dry vermouth with this cocktail--keep it wet--it is cucumber after all. And if you happen to have mint and a cucumber handy, so much the better.

• 2 oz. Ketel One Botanical Cucumber and Mint Vodka
• 1 oz. dry vermouth
• cucumber peel and or mint garnish

Combine liquid ingredients in a mixing glass with ice. Stir and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Spear a peel of cucumber or use a mint sprig as garnish. 

Silver Cocktail

What a classic tasting gin cocktail! All the bitter and sweet flavors are in perfect balance in the Silver Cocktail. The maraschino liqueur, though in small quantity, really goes well with the bitterness of the dry vermouth and gin. Orange bitters, also in small quantity, link up with the lemon twist to send the drink in a citrus direction. It's bold and interesting, yet not so strong as to cause you to wince. All evenly spaced. Maybe that is why this cocktail is called "silver," despite there being no egg white to affect the color.

• 2 oz. gin (MurLarkey ImaGination used)
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (Rivata used)
• 1 tsp. maraschino liqueur
• 3 dashes orange bitters (Hella used)
• lemon twist

Combine all ingredients except lemon twist in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon peel twisted over top. 

Rose and White Rose

I thought it fitting to do both the Rose cocktails together in a single post with the same gin. Equally fitting is the choice of Boodles, a traditional London style gin to go with these two British houses that the cocktails signify.

It is interesting that apart from gin these cocktails have nothing in common. The Rose is one of those apricot brandy, gin and lemon juice combos that you find everywhere in old bar books. It might be the most common combinations behind gin and vermouth!

The White Rose is completely different. It is the first egg white and orange juice cocktail I've come across. There's a ton of maraschino liqueur in there too! The texture and flavors are so opposite each other that it was fun to have both at once.

Here's how to make them:

Rose 

• 2 oz. gin (Boodles used)
• 1 oz. apricot brandy
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (Rivata used)
• 1 tsp. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. grenadie
• lemon wedge
• sugar

Coat the rim of a chilled cocktail glass with sugar by using rubbing a lemon wedge around it and dipping the glass in sugar. You can discard the lemon wedge or use it as a garnish (and rightly so, to control the acid level in the cocktail. just squeeze more in if you find the drink too sweet as I did.) Shake all liquid ingredients in a cocktail shaker full of ice and strain it into the glass.

White Rose

• 2 oz. gin (Boodles used)
• 1 oz. maraschino liqueur (Luxardo used)
• 2 oz. orange juice
• 1 oz. lime juice
• 1 tsp. sugar syrup 
• 1 egg white

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake to chill and strain to remove the ice. Shake again to add foam and pour into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Frankenjack

This is one huge drink, and a strong one. This would seem appropriate--the name Frankenjack seems a bit threatening, like it's the name of some old world monster. And the portion size here is monstrous.

I used MurLarkey ImaGination gin, which was a good call because you can still taste some of the earthier botanicals through all that liqueur. Rivata vermouth was also pleasingly present alongside the cheap Jacquin's apricot brandy (I'm out of my homemade stuff.) And I opted for cheap, sugary triple sec over Cointreau or orange spirit because I figured that either would be wasted here.

The result was a surprisingly easy cocktail for drinking, despite the power of all the spirits. In addition, the dry vermouth cut through the liqueurs very nicely and made for a sweet, but not too sweet, rocks sipper.

• 2 oz. gin (MurLarkey ImaGination used)
• 1 oz. apricot brandy
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (Rivata used)
• 1 oz. triple sec
• maraschino cherry

Combine liquid ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled Old Fashioned glass full of fresh ice. Garnish with the cherry. 

Soul Kiss

I know I've done this drink before. It's a great one, the cocktail that I bought my first bottle of Dubonnet Rouge just to do. I remember being excited to try it. But now when I search for it on my website, it is not there. All the other Dubonnet drinks I've done are there, but not this one. I guess I'll just have to have it again. Sigh!

Soul Kiss is another word for French kiss. It is the title of a lesser-known Olivia Newton John song, by the way, and I think of it as a French cocktail in the Kiss series with the French Kiss, another bourbon drink, and the Kiss Me Quick.

I've got better ingredients this time around. Fresh squeezed orange juice helps a lot. So does Filibuster dual cask bourbon aged in oak and French sauvignon blanc casks. Then the spicy notes of Rivata dry vermouth are really interesting. This drink is foremost a bourbon drink, but Dubonnet Rouge gives it this bright red color and an herbal and sweet flavor that is hard to miss.

• 2 oz. bourbon (Filibuster dual cask used)
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (Rivata used)
• 1/2 oz. orange juice
• 1/2 oz. Dubonnet Rouge

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Favorite / Why Not?

This is one of many apricot brandy, lemon juice and gin cocktails--a combination that is so popular that a drink by the name Favorite is no surprise. These cocktails differ by proportion, however. This one leans more heavily on the apricot brandy and dry vermouth and less on lemon and gin.

Indecently, this is the same exact recipe for the drink called Why Not? except that that one calls for only a quarter teaspoon of lemon juice. It's basically the same thing, though. 

I always have MurLarkey ImaGination gin handy, so it was an obvious base. And I have to say that it is noticeably spicy and rich beneath all that fruitiness of the other ingredients. The other thing that helped was Rivata dry vermouth. With a whole ounce of the stuff, it adds character where this drink might fall flatly like a sugar bomb.

I didn't even bother to juice a lemon, and rather squeezed a wedge lightly over the shaker to get the half teaspoon required for the recipe.

• 1 1/2 oz. gin (ImaGination used)
• 1 oz. dry vermouth (Rivata used)
• 1 oz. apricot brandy
• 1/2 tsp. lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Sloppy Joe's Cocktail

This must be a recipe created at the Key West Sloppy Joe's restaurant or some such propitiatory thing. There are many drinks like this out there with a bartender or restaurant name and a twist on a classic. This classic beneath the classic is a Daiquiri, but this time it has the addition of dry vermouth and grenadine, so the color and spice profile is different. It's not just citrus anymore.

• 2 oz. light rum
• 1 1/2 oz. dry vermouth
• 1 1/2 oz. lime juice
• 1/2 tsp. sugar syrup
• 1/2 tsp. grenadine

Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. 

Pantomime

This cocktail will take some getting used to. Vermouth lovers, and I'm beginning to count myself as one, will like the wine-forward flavor of this drink. Rivata is much spicier than French vermouth that I know and love. There's a lot going on here, though. Orgeat for sweetness and grenadine for the color, as well as egg white and all of it blended until fluffy. This is not a cocktail that comes highly recommended. I'm more excited to have made this obscure drink that isn't sure if it is tiki, or a pre-prohibition classic.

• 3 oz. dry vermouth (Rivata used)
• 3-5 dashes grenadine
• 3-5 dashes orgeat
• egg white

Combine all ingredients in a blender with ice. Blend until smooth and fluffy and pour into a chilled cocktail glass.