The last few weeks have been all about cleaning out the cupboards, which led me to make this sweet vermouth martini. You might ask – how does cleaning out a cupboard lead to a drink? Or maybe you don’t ask, because you already know. In addition to the sheer stress of moving, I’ve doing my best to use up what I have so I don’t have to move it. In this case, I had a nearly empty bottle of gin and a mostly empty bottle of sweet vermouth. Thus, a sweet vermouth martini.
I did a bit of research and this drink is actually a classic – not just a cocktail born out of desperation to clear out a couple of bottles and reduce my overall moving load. The addition of just a hint of bitters rounds out the flavors on this one. I experimented with both orange bitters and grapefruit bitters. And then I experimented with my own homemade blood orange bitters. Before I say which is the tastiest in this sweet vermouth martini, I have to digress and say that yes, I will be carefully bubble wrapping both the blood orange bitters and the blood-orange cello and the limoncello that I made back during the snowpocalypse in December. I consider these precious cargo. I’ll also be doing the same with the remaining blood orange marmalade and the several jars of pickles from two years ago that I need to eat before cucumber season starts up again. I would ditch most of our furniture before I would give up my pickles. My favorite bitters in this, by the way, are the grapefruit bitters. I’m not sure how I ever lived without grapefruit bitters - they are awesome!
My husband, who has been listening to me running around like the Muppets’ Beaker for the last three weeks, probably deserves one or two of these sweet vermouth martinis. I’ll share, but only once we are moved and I have a new bottle of gin in the cupboard. We are definitely going into the time period of moving where, if it runs out, forget it – we are not replacing it (with a few exceptions, like dog food or cat food – the important stuff).
Cheers to you my lovely readers. I hope you are all enjoying a peaceful day of not moving.
Ingredients
- 2 ounces gin
- 1 ounce sweet vermouth
- 2 or 3 drops grapefruit or orange bitters
Instructions
- Chill your martini glass for 15 -20 minutes in the freezer. Swirl the bitters in the chilled glass. Combine the gin and sweet vermouth with ice in a shaker; shake and then strain into the prepared martini glass and enjoy!
