Apéritifs (Accompagnement to Vittles Piece on Steak Frites)
A short guide on how to make a nice drink - ice, vermouth, et al.
Other than salt and tallow, the only things I stock are four bottles of liquor: Gin, Campari, dry white and sweet red vermouth. Here’s what you can make with those:
But First: Ice, Ratios, and Glasses
Twice I’ve asked for more ice at Stanstead Wetherspoons and it’s still only half full. The only difference between here and The Wolseley is that they don’t fill the glass to the top with ice - Wetherspoons do give you the bottle of tonic so you can pour it yourself. I wince when a bartender puts a cube of ice and a pint of tonic water into a 25ml shot of vodka - that’s a 20:1 ratio of vodka to tonic instead of 1:3 - it’s supposed to taste like alcohol. Tedious I know, but, it’s like when you don’t get proper head on your beer - I’m paying £7 for this, don’t kick me whilst I’m down.
I’ve been physically threatened several times before for putting ice in people’s drinks behind the bar - by the same guys that ask me to hold the bottle up whilst I pour so people can see the brand. You get those videos of people taking giant ice cubes out of their glass to reveal the minimal amount of liquid - but cocktails are ratios, often a combo of three 25ml shots. Though, when we had premixed margaritas at the pub I did put less ice in for my friends - for maximum sterling to alcohol ratio.
My girlfriend once said that my love of ice was affected to make up for my lack of personality - funny still, though I resent things that are badly made yet so easily improved. Fill the glass with ice, it dilutes it less. Dilution is an important part of your drink, and it is not only invariable but essential for it to chill.
I got my favourite glasses from Deptford market. Get any glass you like, but kiss the ones you could bite through and tell me they’re not the best. Bottom heavy rocks otherwise - the Campari bottle was redesigned in contemporary defiance of shit minimalism, ready for you to recycle into a rocks glass.
Vermouth
There’s a popularised myth that martinis don’t need vermouth, barely a rinse or a spray from a bottle that’s been bar-side for time immemorial. The James Bond effect - that is, the dryer the martini, the manlier etc. I love a vodka rocks with lemon - but that’s not a martini, have the vermouth.
This über dry martini practice goes hand in hand with a misunderstanding of vermouth itself. It’s not a liquor, it’s a wine - fortified with the addition of alcohol (i.e a distillate has been added, like a neutral grain alcohol). Like wine, fortified wine needs to be drunk fresh after opening and chilled if it’s to be consumed later on, it’s this malpractice that begets dusty bottles that taste like pub carpets. True, vermouth will last longer than wine, but only a month or so - not months, not years.
Vermouth developed from 18th century Turin where it’s now a protected designation, producing sweet rosso vermouths like Antica and Punt e Mes from the O.G Carpano familia who apparently invented it, naming it after the flavouring Wermut (German for wormwood). You’d typically use these in cocktails. Historically, Italian vermouth was red and sweet and French was dry and white - though micro brewery hipsters have cocked this up - it is still generally true. Italian for negronis and French for martinis. Vermouth is next to beer on the taps in Spain but you wouldn’t use it in cocktails, it’s for sipping. You’d get 200mls with a couple cubes of ice and a slice of orange for €2. This is the way to drink vermouth, though its stifled by the difficulty of sourcing beyond what you can find online in the UK - in Spain we’ve taken plastic bottles to the nearby distillery on someone’s patio to stock up and you can buy it at the bakery (more on that in something coming out next week).
For Martinis: Cocchi or Dolin
For Negronis: Carpano Antica
On its own: Timbal, Lustau, Lacuesta, or El Bandarra (Spanish, if you can find it)
I don’t like the Martini vermouths despite wanting to tear down their massive sign and put it in my kitchen every time I see it in Florence. The rosso in particular. Martini Bianco is ok - it’s what you’ll get most of the time you ask for a white vermouth - even in Spain.
Martinis
We went to the Seven Stars in Holborn, a pub that I learnt was for lawyers when my girlfriend bumped into her uncle who works at the Royal Courts of Justice (of course he does). I’ll always remember the martini I drank there as it was the worst possible way I could imagine to make one. The vodka was frozen - which is fine for shots, but this made the bartended think he didn’t need to use ice. It was Smirnoff, this is also unforgivably worse than own brand supermarket vodka. He got two coupes, put a bit of Martini Bianco in them and chucked it out - again, fine if using a nice vermouth or vodka but this whole combination left us three minutes away from sipping straight up lukewarm Smirnoff, neither shaken nor stirred - let alone diluted. Insane.
6:1 Ratio of Gin to Dry Vermouth
I like vodka Martinis with Stolichnaya (Russian for ‘capital city’, though a myth I like to prolong calls it ‘table vodka’ - for the prefix ‘stol’, which does mean table), but martinis are usually made with gin. I use a London dry like Tanqueray and a dry white vermouth like Cocchi di Torino.
Keep your glasses in the freezer. Add ingredients to shaker filled with ice, stir (or shake) for several seconds, pour. You can also experiment with the vermouth - putting more or less in.
I prefer lemon peel or cucumber for a garnish, though you can make a dirty martini by adding a bit of the brine with your olives. Other customisations include the 50/50 Martini (1:1), or the Perfect Martini where the vermouth part is split in half to include half dry and half sweet.
Negronis (and Americanos and Manhattans)
On breaks between double shifts I’d walk across the street to the nice cocktail bar that never ID’d me during the summer that I was the last of us to turn 18. I downed my first Negroni, perhaps my best - rivalled by the ICA bar. Working in hospitality ages you. That year I killed myself working in a French brasserie but most days I’d drink a third of three bottles of gin, Campari, and red vermouth.
Be very careful what vermouth you use in a Negroni, it took me a while to realise this. Campari is Campari, gin is usually gin, but vermouths vary massively - especially in the UK where we don’t drink them.
Use something not too dark, like Antica, as the Campari is bitter enough already. Cucielo is amazing too, Punt e Mes is cheaper but too dark - it’s old school and characterised as halfway between a red vermouth and Campari - which is why I don’t like it for Negronis, it’s unbalanced, you can taste it.
Americanos are two parts red vermouth to one part Campari, there are a lot of variations on harder cocktails like this for good reason. Manhattans are two parts whisky to one part red vermouth - with a couple dashes of bitters (212 - Manhattan area code) and several Luxardo maraschino cherries.
1:1:1 Gin, Campari, Red Vermouth
Add ingredients to ice, stir for a few seconds, strain into a glass over rocks with a twist of orange peel. The dilution element can’t be overlooked, when you give someone a drink you want it to be 80% ready, so it stays at its best for as long as possible
Gin & Tonics
Obviously I’m not going to pontificate on this but do use the former principles and do temper the ratio to your taste, there’s a fine line between a nice drink, something too strong, and water. I hate the whole gin equals goblet thing, stop it!
I prefer a London dry to most - they tend to taste like gin, - that is juniper, rather than falling face first into a forest floor of bark, moss, and deodorant. There’s barely a difference in sugar but a huge difference in taste for diet tonic i.e not worth it.
Sometimes you put Campari in your G&T.
Campari Soda
Soda water is not sparkling water. The guy who owned the bar would refuse to pay the extra 11p per bottle from Tesco so I couldn’t have Campari or whisky sodas. The list goes on. Campari and tonic is also nice though bitter. Serve with lemon, not orange.
Notes
I usually just have one Martini or Negroni when I make them, the second one is never as good as the first, they’re also perfect drinks for when you’re ready twenty minutes before you need to leave. Read the recipes and make the drink again from memory, make your martini, not mine, but I’ll arrive and tell you it’s not cold enough.
For garnishes, peel a strip of lemon zest, put finger and thumb on either end, and squeeze whatever comes out atop your Martini. For olives I’d use those giant nocellara ones, put them in your spritz too. Go to Antonio’s Italian deli in Lewisham if you’re near, the one in Stoke Newington is good too. I’m alone in hating the ancho ones. But also, peel other things, like cucumber. Grapefruits are horrible to eat but nice in gin and tonics.
Freezing your glasses makes a great difference, it’s also great for beer which is what they do in Spain as standard.
One of my favourite habits is walking miles to dinner, arriving early, and ordering a vodka rocks with lemon - though more often than I like, they haven’t got vodka - just 78 different wines, two Kernel beers, and fernet branca? Or Suze? Suze is a bright yellow liquor that’s derived from the gentian plant - the same thing Angostura Bitters is based on. It’s such a weird taste, like flowers. It’s nice straight up or with tonic. You can make a white Negroni with gin, Suze, and white vermouth. It’s sold in France for pennies, but thrice as expensive and 5% stronger in the UK? Nice.
The learning curve of making a good drink is much like that of cooking. Once you realise the power of salt, lemon, and butter, there’s not that much separating you from Thomas Straker. Remember: ice, ratios, glasses.
I don't think I've even ever had a cocktail besides a G&T, but that was still a really fun read.
Love it! Every freezer needs a shelf just for glassware.
One note: I think you might have your Manhattan ratios back to front? I'm sure it's 2 parts rye (ideally Rittenhouse) to 1 part vermouth (ideally Carpano Antica as you so rightly say) plus the 2 dashes of Ango, making up the 212 area code. Or if I've got it wrong, then I've been drinking very strong Manhattans all this time ...
Also once you've got the rye, you don't need much more kit to extend your range to Old Fashioneds and Sazeracs :P