Hi, Friends of Cocktails! James Bond was known to be a fan of the Martini - and before you say it, he only ordered the Vesper Martini once in the novels. Classic gin or vodka Martinis were on his menu a lot more often, and since he was also a big fan of sparkling wine I think he’d love what we’re making today: a Sparkling Dry Martini, with a special garnish!
I again partnered with FIOL Prosecco to show you another great way to use sparkling wine to elevate your cocktail game. So we’ll create a fortified vermouth base, using gin and various botanicals, then adding FIOL Prosecco as the wine component, with bubbles as a bonus. This sparkling dry vermouth will then be used as an ingredient in a Dry Martini.
So before we make our sparkling dry vermouth, let’s quickly go over how to approach flavor pairing in something like FIOL Prosseco. Their Extra Dry Prosecco has 4 main tasting notes: fruity, citrusy, floral, and herbal, with each group containing certain notes like pear, lemon, acacia, and Mediterranean herbs. Also as a tip, you can usually find very specific tasting notes on the brand’s website for most of your cocktail ingredients.
The simplest way to elevate an ingredient in a cocktail is to add something that reinforces one of those notes, or an entire group. For example, using acacia honey and jasmine green tea in our vermouth base will elevate the floral tasting notes of FIOL, lemon and orange peels will bring out the citrus notes, and so on. Another way is to find complementing flavors of one of the flavor notes you’re working with, like we have done in the past using the Flavor Matrix book.
And the third option is when you combine both of the first two - so using a direct connection and a complementary pairing. We did that with our Sparkling Sweet Vermouth a few months ago and we’ll do it again with dry vermouth. So with that said, let’s begin. It’s Cocktail Time!
Sparkling Dry Vermouth
● FIOL Prosecco
● 225mL · 8.5oz Gin
● 45mL · 1.5oz Pickled Pearl Onion Brine
● 20g Acacia Honey
● 4g Lemon Peels
● 4g Orange Peels
● 0.5g Dried Basil
● 0.5g Jasmine Green Tea
● 0.3g Dried Chamomile
● 0.16g Dried Mint Tea
● 0.4g Wormwood
I’ll use a sous vide cooker to infuse our gin with all of the flavoring agents, but as I’ve shown in the latest cocktail hacks episode, there’s a way to create a sous vide using common kitchen equipment. So start adding ingredients into the sous vide bag with the exception of the Prosecco, double seal it, and place it in the sous vide bath set to 60°C or 140°F for 2 hours. Also remember to give the bag a little shake and a turn in between, to make sure every ingredient is getting to know each other in there.
After 2 hours transfer the bag into an ice bath, to chill everything, especially the alcohol, before you cut open the bag and strain out all of the solids. I’m using a coffee filter, but a cloth filter would work as well. With that we have our first part of the cocktail - the dry vermouth base. To make dry vermouth you then just mix this base with Prosecco in a 1:4 ratio.
If you are just making one or two cocktails, feel free to mix the base and your FIOL straight into a glass, but I’ll do that right into the bottle of prosecco. So pour out 150mL (5oz) of prosecco, and pour in 150mL of our dry vermouth base, seal with a sparkling wine stopper, and gently turn. With ths we have created a wonderful Sparkling Dry Vermouth, with wonderful citrus and floral notes that will really work great in a bubbly Martini.
The base will keep indefinitely, but it’s better to keep it in the fridge so it’s always chilled when you need it. And if you pre-mix your sparkling dry vermouth you should use it within a few days, to keep the bubbles alive and well. So now we have the main ingredients for our Martini, but we also already have the special garnish - Baby Blue Onions. This will be featured in a future episode on cocktail garnishes, but they’re easy to make using blue spirulina and an iSi Siphon.
So with that little tease let’s make the Sparkling Martini!
Sparkling Martini
● 37.5mL · 1.25oz London Dry Gin
● 15mL · 0.5oz Dry Vermouth Base
● 60g FIOL Prosecco
● 2 drops 20% Saline Solution
● Baby Blue Onion Garnish
We’ll make this partly in the mixing glass, and add prosecco in the glass. I’m starting with a chilled mixing glass into which I’m adding the gin, Vermouth Base, and saline solution, alongsided plenty of ice. Now stir to mix, chill and dilute the ingredients, and pour our Martini into a well-chilled Nick & Nora glass. We still need to add our sparkling ingredient, and as I showed in the first cocktail hacks episode, use a scale if you want to be precise with bubbly ingredients.
All that’s left is to add the garnish, and we can enjoy this cross between a Dry and a Gibson Sparkling Martini. But what does it taste like? It’s delicate, dry, herbal and citrusy. With a dry, brine-y finish it really walks the line between the Gibson and a Dry Martini. The bubbles just make it more fun. And if you want another pairing, this is a perfect cocktail to pair with oysters.
With that we’ve made it to the Bottom of The Glass. If you’d like to learn even more about how I approach flavor pairings, I talk about other examples and cocktails I’ve created in my masterclass titled “Mastering Bubbles” in partnership with FIOL Prosecco, which I do in bars around the world. So make sure to follow me and FIOL on instagram if you’d like to see what places we hit next. But for everyone that tunes in to Cocktail Time every week, thank you and I’ll see you next week. Cheers!