Martinez Cocktail – A Drink with Classic Heritage

Martinez Cocktail

A Martinez cocktail may be a surprisng new favourite if you’re a fan of Martinis or Manhattans.


Martinez Cocktail

Do you like gin? Of course you do. And vermouth? Even better. How about some deep, sour cherry funk? Old Tom Gin, Maraschino Liqueur, and sweet vermouth – This cocktail has structure and complexity for days!

A classic Martinez cocktail is one of my favourite drinks. It sits nicely between a Martini and a Manhattan. Considering the ingredients it could have been the inspiration for one or both of those cocktails. The three cocktails certainly developed around the the same time and there is a definite relationship between them.



Martinez Cocktail History

The true origins of the Martinez are unknown. What we do know is that it starts showing up in cocktail books around the late 1800s. There is a little back and forth between curaçao and maraschino. In one case the directions are to simply make a Manhattan but with gin instead of whiskey.

Various historical sources disagree about whether to use Old Tom Gin or London Dry Gin. Today that is a little easier to accomplish, but for most of the past 50 years Old Tom Gin had nearly gone extinct, so there weren’t a lot of options.


Martinez Cocktail Ingredients

The current most widely used recipe calls for Old Tom gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino and bitters. Although, the back story kind of sets up the a framework you can play with.

The first choice you have to make is to decide on what kind of gin you are going to use. For most of the Twentieth century your choice was London Dry Gin. That is obviously a serviceable option. It has reliable juniper backbone surrounded by good citrus and spice notes.

Now, if you’re interested in Old Tom gin simply because of historical accuracy, go for it. Although, Old Tom gin is a bit of a nebulous category. Old Tom was the style of gin that was predominant in the 18th century, so it makes sense that it would have been the gin of choice for the Martinez. The advent of London Dry Gin drove the style into obscurity and its reported that by 1960 there was only one distillery producing it.

What is Old Tom Gin

With the cocktail revival, the rise of craft distilling and resulting gin boom interest in Old Tom Gin has brought the spirit back. The problem is that there is no clear definition for what it is. Generally, it is agreed that it was a slightly sweeter style than London Dry gin and that it is a compound gin rather than a distilled gin.

A compound gin is gin that is made by mixing extracts and natural flavours with neutral spirit. In contrast distilled gin is made redistilling neutral spirit with the botanicals. Generally speaking compound gins are considered lower quality than distilled gins, but that isn’t always the case.

In terms of flavour there isn’t a set style. Where you will see the biggest difference is in the texture and finish. A little sugar will make it punchier and give it a richer texture. This should work well with the sweet vermouth, but you want to be careful because you’re also adding a liqueur.

Other Gin Options

I like to walk that line a little more closely and use a barrel aged gin in a Martinez cocktail. The gin picks up oak and whiskey lactones from the barrel. The resulting gin is mellower. It will still retain its characteristic botanical gin nature, but it also has a hint of whiskey.

What is Maraschino Liqueur?

Maraschino liqueur is an Italian liqueur made from marasca sour cherries. Not to be confused with the heinous fake cherries. It is a common ingredient in many classic cocktail recipes and totally worth keeping on your bar.

The flavor is surprisingly subtle. As you might expect, it has a cherry flavour, but deeper and funkier. It also has lovely marzipan, almond, and floral notes. It is sweet, of course. After all, it is a liqueur.

Maraschino liqueur act as a bridge ingredient in the Martinez cocktail. It helps harmonize the botanical flavors in gin with the bitters and vermouth.

Sweet Vermouth

Sweet vermouth is an aromatized, fortified wine. Basically that means wine that has had aromas added by being flavored with herbs and botanicals. It is also fortified with the addition of high proof alcohol and sugar.

Wine was originally fortified and aromatized in order to prevent spoilage. It does help with that, but it is also delicious.

Usually, when a recipe calls for sweet vermouth it is referring to Vermut de Torino, or Italian vermouth. This is a style of vermouth that originated around Turin in the

Angostura Bitters and Orange Bitters

The Martinez cocktail recipe splits the bitters between Angostura and Orange. This is a fairly common approach to getting some nice orange and citrus aromas as well as the complexity of aromatic bitters.

Angostura bitters are the classic aromatic bitters. For bartenders they are the salt shaker. They lift and enhance flavor and work pretty much everywhere. If you want to branch out you can substitute other aromatic bitters. Fee Brother’s Old Fashioned are nice, but every producer makes an all purpose aromatic bitters.

Orange Bitters are again classic and used everywhere. Regan’s and Angostura are the two most widely available orange bitters, but there are dozens of others

If you really want to get creative try making your own.

Martinez Cocktail Recipe

  • 2 oz Old Tom Gin
  • 1 oz Sweet Vermouth
  • ¼ oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
  • 2 dashes Angostura bitters
  • 1 dash orange bitters
  1. Pour all ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice and stir for 10-15 seconds.
  2. Strain the cocktail into an chilled coupe glass.
  3. Twist a swath of lemon peel over the drink and drop in to garnish.

Visit CocktailMonkey.ca to learn more about classic cocktail recipes.

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