Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: It Was the Dukes! It Was the Dukes!

Hello and happy Friday once again. We’re staying in England again this week. I’m attempting the famous Dukes Vesper martini at home! I specifically waited to try and re-create this because I wanted to make sure I got the exact ingredients. Yes, you can make substitutes in drinks. I know I certainly have here, but this one is a martini I wanted to replicate to exact specifications. The recipe thankfully is easily found online, as well as in a martini cocktail book I have. So, I went off of that (with a notable exception, I’ll explain later).

Dukes Vesper Martini

6 dashes Angostura bitters

2.5 oz. No. 3 London dry gin

1 oz. Potocki 1816 Polish vodka

1/3 oz. Sacred Sprits English Amber vermouth

Orange twist for garnish

Add bitters to a frozen cocktail glass. Combine the gin, vodka and vermouth in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake, then strain into the glass and garnish with the orange twist.

Now where I deviated from the recipe is the shaking aspect. They dont shake this at Dukes, so I felt I shouldn’t either. What they do at the bar, and what I did at home is freeze the gin and the vodka ahead of time. Shaking cools the drink down and you want this very cold, but don’t shake it. Just freeze the gin and vodka, and refridgerate the vermouth and you’ll be fine.

Very subtle aroma, I get a lot of citrus actually, despite the orange peel/oil being a relatively small addition to the drink itself

This is delicious. Every bit as good as I remember it being. Though I’m sure the Dukes version would blow mine out of the water if they were sipped side by side. Hell, even I’d probably choose Dukes over my own. Either way, having this makes me happy.

I almost forgot how boozy this thing is. It packs a tremendous punch. Even by martini standards, this thing is strong. Limiting intake to two drinks is a wise choice made by Dukes. What really helps offset some of the intensity of this drink is how cold it is. I actually prepared the gin/vodka mixture about a week ago, as we hosted some friends who had also been to Dukes, and we decided we should do vespers when my bottle of the amber vermouth arrived. His partner didn’t end up having hers, so it sat in the freezer waiting to be consumed. Also, I made sure to freeze the glass. As mentioned in my BOTG, everything is in the freezer, so I needed to do the same for the home version.

Anyway, the coldness makes this very drinkable. With the gin leading the way. No. 3 is a great gin. I’ve had it before, though not in a long time. It makes a fantastic drink and it’s not even that expensive either. The gin’s juniper and the botanicals stand out here, especially fighting through the vermouth and the bitters. The vodka does get a little lost, but then again, vodka might be the most neutral of neutral spirits. So I really didn’t expect much flavor to come out of here, and I’m right. I really should try the vodka on it’s own to see what it does bring to the table.

The finish is a great combination of all the flavors coming together: the gin botanicals, the bitter from the citrus and the angostura, a touch of sweet to balance that from the amber vermouth. A slight boozy/burn aftertaste hangs out on the palate for a bit, but I don’t hate that. It slows you down actually. This is a cocktail meant to be enjoyed for a while. There is no chugging this, or even rushing it. This is a sipping drink in it’s purest form.

As good as this is, I think I will be making this sparingly, because of how hard the ingredients were to source. The gin I can get locally, no issue there. The vodka is a different story. I had to go to New York to get a bottle. Remember the trip I wrote about a couple weeks ago? I journeyed across Manhattan to one specific liquor store to get my hands on the 1816. The vermouth was the hardest to get. Kina lilet, as called for in Casino Royale, does not exist anymore. The English Amber vermouth is supposedly the closest thing you can get to Kina Lilet today. The Sacred Spirits company actually made it in partnership with Dukes to get the formula/flavor profile as close to the Kina as possible. I had to have a bottle delivered to my friends who live in the UK, and they brought it over with my Brighton gin and mailed it to me. So, because I can’t even replace this bottle without leaving the country (or having friends that just happen to travel over here), I’ll be keeping this bottle as long as practical. It IS a vermouth after all, and vermouth does eventually turn. Even if properly stored in the refrigerator. Other satisfactory substitutions for the vermouth are out there, and I’ll end up trying one of them at some point, but once you’ve had the best, anything else will pale in comparison.

(Banner image courtesy Matthew Tetrault Photography)