Sharkbait’s Cocktail of the Week: Margurites

Happy Friday and day 2 of the NFL draft. I missed the first round last night but it seems like I missed a decent amount:

The Jets and Giants did a good?!

AJ Brown to the Eagles!

Hollywood Brown to the Cardinals in what I assume was some sort of mix-up where they traded for the wrong Wide Receiver named Brown.

What will day 2 have in store? No idea, but as someone who admittedly can’t get into watching the NFL draft, I’ll be rooting for hilarious over reaches (Looks at New England drafting Cole Strange) or just chaos in general.

Now, what should you drink during tonight’s coverage? Glad you asked. May I present the Marguerite. This is an early spin on a martini from Harry Johnson (stop). His version calls for the cherry garnish, as well as anisette,  but re-prints of this recipe have omitted the anisette and allowed for orange as a garnish. I’m intrigued since my experience with martini’s is rather limited. In an effort to branch out, I figured this one was worth a try.

Marguerite

2 oz. Gin

1 oz. Dry vermouth

2 Dashes orange bitters

Orange peel or cherry for garnish

Stir all ingredients together in a mixing glass with ice. Strain into a chilled coupe. Garnish

Up front, there are distinct orange notes mixed with vermouth aromas dominate that completely dominate the nose here. I get no noticeable hints of the gin so far.

The sip is strong and bold, just like a martini would be. The overall flavor is surprisingly more vermouth forward, with the gin acting in a support role. I think I would have preferred a little more gin flavor coming through. I think I need to adjust the ratio going forward, maybe a 3:1 ratio of gin to vermouth. You could use vodka here as well, but I would suggest keeping the 2:1 for that, since vodka is neutral spirit, adding more only increases ABV, and not flavor here.

Speaking of other flavors, the orange flavor is there, but somewhat muted. Though I think that might have been on my end, since I used the last of my orange bitters and I may have been just short of the two dashes called for in the recipe. The bitter tones from the….bitters was discernable, and played well with the vermouth and gin elements at play.

I usually don’t drink martinis. I have no real disdain for them, I usually prefer whiskey based drinks, but I should really start adding them to my repertoire. Especially if they have promise like this one. I liked what was going on with the orange additions, which you don’t tend to see in martinis and I’m not quite sure why. It works here and quite well I might add. One to mix up when I want a change of pace, or if I’m out of whiskey…

(Banner image found here)