I have my friend Rebecca to thank for a new drink to the repertoire: the Jasmine. It’s a surprising, but simple enough, combination of ingredients that a well-stocked basic bar would have:

Jasmine Cocktail

scant jigger gin
1/2 jigger lemon juice
a splash Cointreau
a splash Campari

She whipped up a batch Friday night, and for me it perfectly captured the late summer weather we’re having, with its sunny days and crisp nights. With plenty of citrus and just a hint of Campari, it reminded me a lot of the bitter-sour flavor of grapefruit juice. Like many great drinks, in any case, the balance meant that the ingredients added up to a whole greater than the parts. It’s now in my heavy rotation.

This last weekend I headed over to dBar, a newish gay bar in Dorchester. I’d recommend it to those who haven’t gone – it has a nice neighborhood restaurant meets city lounge kind of feel. It’s nice to see owners putting thought into the design of a bar (even if that means leaving the woodwork from the former steakhouse), and hosts actually being friendly.

Drinks are big city prices, a pint five dollars and my not-terribly-high-shelf cocktail nine dollars. I can’t say I’m overly wowed with the bartending. Inexplicably the wheat beer had an orange wheel instead of a lemon wedge in it. And after having a frosty cold martini at DeLux,, my gimlet at dBar seemed downright tepid and uninspiring.

The thing worth noting is that like many these days, they squeezed fresh lime juice into my gimlet. I can’t say this is categorically wrong, but I’m convinced that the people who do it aren’t big gimlet fans. There’s something magical about the mutual bracing qualities of gin and Rose’s lime, and the real lime breaks the spell.

For what it’s worth, here’s one definitive statement, from Terry Malloy in Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye:

“They don’t know how to make them here,” he said. “What they call a gimlet is just some lime or lemon juice and gin with a dash of sugar and bitters. A real gimlet is half gin and half Rose’s Lime Juice and nothing else. It beats martinis hollow.” (19)

I’m not a full traditionalist, and I find that a 4:1 ratio is much more suited to modern tastes than a 1:1 ratio. (You see a similar rebalancing in the stalwart martini.) Here’s how I make them:

Gimlet

2 jiggers dry gin
1/2 jigger Rose’s lime juice

Shake well in a cocktail shaker. If serving straight up, strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with thin sliver of lime floating on to. If serving on the rocks, strain into a rocks glass with ice and garnish with lime wedge on rim.

Like martinis, gimlets really are best very cold. Can they be made with vodka? Sure, but I’m not clear what the point would be.

If you’re in Massachusetts, tomorrow is Tax Day, which means it’s time to whip up those Income Tax Cocktails. As Rick pointed out in the comments to my post on the Bronx Cocktail, the Income Tax Cocktail is a Bronx with bitters added. Actually, I sometimes prefer a drier Bronx (i.e. more gin) but always enjoy the vermouth-heavy Income Tax Cocktail as traditionally made. I first saw it in the Savoy Cocktail Book (above). Here’s Ted Haigh’s transcription:

Income Tax Cocktail

1 jigger dry gin
1/2 jigger dry vermouth
1/2 jigger sweet vermouth
juice of 1/4 orange, squeezed directly into shaker
2 dashes Angostura bitters

Shake in iced cocktail shaker and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with orange wheel.

As my friends know, I like to have a drink of the season. Something that captures my mood and complements the climate. Maybe even that uses seasonal ingredients. A drink for which I can have the ingredients on hand for company or for myself.

Well, after my trip to B Side, the drink of spring for me is the Last Word. Its fruity-dry balance, its pale green color, its perfect alchemy that needs no garnish: I can’t think of a better spring cocktail. It was popular among my friends too, who couldn’t remember the cocktail name so kept calling it the L Word.

It’s not in most guidebooks, even the encyclopedic Trader Vic’s. Thankfully, Paul at Cocktail Chronicles comes to the rescue. I urge you to go read his post for the history of this long-forgotten Prohibition-era drink (that’s half the fun), but for convenience I’ll reproduce the recipe:

The Last Word

1/2 jigger dry gin
1/2 jigger maraschino liqueur
1/2 jigger green Chartreuse
1/2 jigger fresh lime juice

Put ingredients with ice in a shaker and shake well. Strain into chilled cocktail glass. No garnish.

I only see a couple of drawbacks. First, some people don’t like Chartreuse. I love the stuff myself and have a hard time keeping a bottle around, I like it on the rocks so much. But to some, the herbal flavors will remind them of a Ricola cough drop. To them, I’ll just say that in the Last Word, the interplay holds everything in balance; like a Long Island Ice Tea, you don’t so much taste the individual liquors, as the sum is greater than the parts.

Then there’s the ingredients: maraschino liqueur isn’t too cheap and can be a pain to find; and Chartreuse is expensive, often topping forty dollars a bottle, though Martignetti’s currently stocks it for 34 bucks. If you’re unsure about committing to the liquor, or are leery of odd-tasting liqueurs, go try a Last Word at B-Side for a test run. I predict that many of you, even the gin-haters, will fall in love with this one.

The Bronx Cocktail - essentially a perfect martini with orange juice added - is one of those drinks I used to see in guidebooks and recipe lists but never heard of being served. I had never tried one until recently. I imagine two culprit are to blame. First, gin has suffered a precipitous loss of popularity. Second, vermouth itself is used less and less, and the occasion that anyone orders a perfect martini today must be rare indeed. When it comes down to it, drinkers don’t always have patience these days for flavors that aren’t straightforward. We don’t want a complex drink with orange, we want an orange drink.

Shame, too, because in my book the Bronx is a perfect “fruity” drink: flavorful and mildly sweet without being uninteresting or sticky. As before, Punt e Mes picks up seemingly everything is added to, so I highly recommend using that as the sweet vermouth. It’s a flexible recipe: you can increase the gin to make it drier, or you can increase the orange juice or vermouth to taste. Here’s the proportion I landed on:

Bronx Cocktail

2 jiggers dry gin
1/2 jigger fresh orange juice
1/4 jigger dry vermouth
1/4 jigger sweet vermouth

Shake with ice and strain into chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon twist or cherry, if you like.

I’d always wanted to try Carpano’s Punt è Mes because of its label design alone, but somehow had never gotten around to it. Maybe I was unenthused when I discovered it was vermouth; after all, I had a perfectly full bottle of Martini & Rossi red on the shelf, why shell out money for more?

I’m glad I did. What a revelation. I never knew I liked Italian vermouth before. I’d see vintage cocktail recipes calling for it, lots of them, and wonder how people back in the day were so fond of the stuff. But with quality vermouth you can see it. It’s not to everyone’s taste, to be sure. If you don’t like herbal or bitter overtones, you probably won’t like it - but you’ll probably like it better than cheap vermouth.

I started with a mini-taste test, comparing the Carpano with the Martini & Rossi. Even by sight, you can tell the former (on the right) has more body than the latter (on the left). The amounts I poured are the same:

Whereas the cheaper vermouth was thin, tart and winey, like a cross between a so-so sherry and a cheap wine, Punt è mes had a full-bodied, well-rounded palate, herbal and just as much bitter as sweet. It reminded me of Italian bitters (amaro), and I guess it actually is in the same category, being a fortified wine with herbal infusion. Even more than amaro, it tastes great on ice, with a squeeze of lemon if you like (not necessary though). A great apéritif.

Next, I tested Manhattans, one made with Martini & Rossi and one made with Punt è Mes, using three parts bourbon to one part vermouth. The first tasted thin and unbalanced, though it was hard to pin down what was lacking. Meanwhile, good vermouth really excels here, standing up to the full body and complexity of the bourbon and bringing out the spicy Angostura bitters in harmony. If you’re into Manhattans, I highly recommend getting Punt è Mes for a noticeable difference.

Finally, I wanted to try a cocktail that would foreground the vermouth. The similarity to amaro made me think of the Negroni, which is equal parts Campari, gin and Italian vermouth. While I like Campari and occasionally will order a Negroni, it’s catch-in-the-back-of-your-throat bitter and not a smooth, pleasant drink. So I whipped up a revised Negroni with milder amaro instead of the Campari. (Ramazzoti’s my favorite.) I used Plymouth for its smoothness (i.e. restrained juniper), but any gin should do. An orange slice/wheel is traditional, but I like the extra touch of squeezing the peel’s oil into the drink. Everything else, especially the equal proportions remains the same, and the interplay is perfect.

The Negroni works better as a smallish cocktail. Save the oversized martini glasses for another occasion.

Revisionist Negroni
1 medium-small cocktail

1/2 jigger Plymouth gin
1/2 jigger Punt è Mes
1/2 jigger amaro of choice

Shake with ice, then strain into a small cocktail glass. Take an orange twist and squeeze over drink to release oils; drop in.

There are two important things to note about maraschino liqueur.

First, while etymologically related to maraschino cherries, it doesn’t taste anything like the waxy garnish or even like cherries. It’s made from the fruit and pits of marasca cherries grown along the Adriatic coast. While once very popular, far less is made and distributed today: Italy’s Luxardo is a standard and particularly good brand.

Second, its distinctively-scented almondy-half-bitterness is an acquired taste, and hard to describe, though definitely worth the effort to acquire. Maraschino is dry and sophisticated – a nice break from more common, sweeter liqueurs. It also mixes well: open any older (pre-1950) cocktail book and you’ll be amazed just how many cocktails call for maraschino liqueur. It adds a complexity that fell out of favor in the postwar years, but one worth adding back to cocktails.

How does one serve maraschino liqueur? My favorite way is on the rocks with a generous squeeze of lemon to tame the spirit’s assertiveness. Weirdly enough, the lemon brings forth the underlying cherry flavor. Add a slim twist of lemon peel if serving for company and you have a perfect apéritif or digestif. It’s particularly nice for these almost spring days when you want something fresh-tasting yet when breaking out the rum or the Campari feels like pushing the season.

Alternately, if you’re looking for a cocktail to foreground maraschino’s distinctive taste, try the Aviation cocktail:

2 jiggers gin
1 jigger maraschino liqueur
1 jigger lemon juice

Shake and strain into a well-chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist or cherry. For you gin-haters, vodka can be substituted, further foregrounding the maraschino flavor.

Luxardo can be found at Marty’s, Mall Discount Fresh Pond and better-stocked liquor stores. Retail runs about $28 a bottle.

You’ll notice that I will often use “sweet” and “fruity” as disparaging terms. It’s not that any cocktail made with fruit or with a sweet side is bad. It’s just that current trends have put such an emphasis on neutral spirits and candy-like ingredients that any quality of the cocktail gets lost.

Nowhere does the current vogue for sweetness need to be more resisted than with the martini. I think T-Rage gets its right when he says,

The martini is another rare, perfect thing (”the only American invention as perfect as a sonnet,” as H.L. Mencken had it). It has a history. It should be hallowed. There are only a few variations on the theme that should be allowed, like dry or very dry. This vulgar proliferation of so-called martinis—these froo-froo concoctions that are only martinis, in a perverse reversal of Mencken’s diktat, because they’re in a martini glass–has gone way too far. The classic martini is that rare gender-neutral cocktail—something both men and women can drink, looking elegant but not effeminate drinking it. It is the ne plus ultra of urbanity, more cosmopolitan than a cosmopolitan. These fruity-tooty drinky-winkies that they’re pawning off as martinis are heresy, pure and simple.

So, too, do I second Fareed Zakaria in his call for vermouth.

The idea of making a martini with no vermouth in it is absurd. It is, to put it theologically, contra naturum. The martini is a mixed drink. A goodly portion of vermouth rests in its very essence.

For me, martinis are gin with a noticeable quantity of vermouth. I’m not sure I’d consider vodka martinis heresy, but I don’t see the point of them. It’s the balance of the harsh-herbal gin and the winey vermouth that, beyond the V-shaped glass, gives the martini its reason for existence. Vodka doesn’t have the flavor to stand up to vermouth; you’d be better off doing like the Eastern Europeans and serving small Ittala glasses of the spirit, chilled and neat.

So I stick with a good dry gin though I don’t need anything too expensive. What follows is my favorite recipe for a martini. A 4:1 gin-to-vermouth ratio seems right to me for modern palates: enough vermouth to reintroduce balance where ultra-dry fashion has left only booze, but not so much as to make the drink seem like cheap white wine. Whatever the proportions, be sure to chill the glass well and to properly chill ingredients, whether shaken or stirred. The difference between cold gin and warm is immense.

Classic Martini
Makes 1 cocktail

2 jiggers dry gin
1/2 jigger dry vermouth
olive

Put ingredients over ice in cocktail shake. Shake vigorously and pour into a well chilled cocktail glass.