Naked Martini on National Martini Day
3 1/2 oz London No. 1 Gin
3/4 oz Dolin Blanc Vermouth
1 dash Hella Bitters Orange
Place all ingredients in the freezer for several hours, including the Martini Glass. Once completely chilled measure liquids into the Chilled glass and garnish with a Lemon twist.
When trying to decide what form of Martini I wanted to make for National Martini Day, Classic, Dry, Sweet, Perfect, Dirty, 50/50, etc., I settled on a Naked. Unfortunately, when looking up references to how I wanted to put one together, I ended up getting a bit of mixology nerd rage.
I guess I must have taken a much harder line on Martinis in the recent past. I know that there are wonderful variations to Martinis but it’s perplexing to see at all of the recipes online that call for Vodka in Classic Martinis, at just how many Martini recipes called for shaking them, and at so many “Naked” Martini recipes were just a base spirit (often Vodka again) chilled with ice (often shaken) and dumped into a glass by it’s diluted self.
My understanding of what makes a Naked Martini ‘naked’ was that all of the ingredients were chilled in a freezer ahead of time so you could have a completely undiluted drink that was still as chilled as possible. Maybe I’m wrong, but that’s what I went with. The London No. 1 Gin shined here with its rich citrus flavor undaunted by dilution.
I did reach back to see if I could get away with using Bitters at all and it does seem that Orange or Aromatic Bitters were often used way back when so I happily dashed some Orange. I opted for a Lemon twist over Olives as I never do put Olives in my Martinis. There are plenty of things that I like dirty, but a Martini isn’t one of them.
