15 hours ago
The coolest cocktail this summer? It's not an Aperol Spritz
Certain moments stand out in Declan McGurk's memory. The Irishman and former director of beverages at the Savoy Hotel in London recounts the moment when a certain Irish Bond actor called by the bar and ordered — what else? A martini. 'It was almost too perfect,' McGurk says, smiling. Now the managing director of the Boatyard Distillery, McGurk uses his experience of serving world-beating cocktails to customers such as Pierce Brosnan to inform the brand's international expansion.
Founded by Joe McGirr on the banks of Lough Erne in Co Fermanagh, Boatyard Distillery can claim an impressive female master distiller in Órlaith Kelm, one of many local talents set on seeing Boatyard conquer the US. 'We've carefully seeded the brand across key states,' McGurk explains, 'and have recently been taken on by a major distributor.'
Tariffs, he says, are not an immediate concern. 'We can only deal with what's in front of us today,' he says. The martini trend is not harming their ambitions.
• How to make the perfect martini, according to the Connaught
'Coming from New York this week, I can tell you that martinis are absolutely trending there,' he says. 'And Europe is catching up.'
McGurk has advice for the martini novice. 'First think about setting,' he says. 'Obviously I recommend having a martini made by an expert, but if you're mixing martinis at home my advice is to prepare ahead of time. To get the right temperature, and to avoid using too much ice that will dilute the drink, mix your martini about 90 minutes ahead of serving time. Pop the ingredients in a bottle — a plastic bottle will do, adding a good measure of water. Pop that in the freezer, then grab it when your guests arrive. This is your route to a clean, perfectly chilled martini.'
So what's prompting the martini movement? 'It's a combination of factors,' McGurk says. 'First you had the pandemic, when people realised that one or two great drinks is often preferable to ten bad ones. Then you have the fact that martinis are timeless, unisex and just really classy,' he says. 'The best way to drink them is pre-dinner. Go for a plate of oysters and a dirty martini before your steak dinner. That's a night out.' Can we drink martinis all night long? Not ideally, McGurk says. 'A martini is designed to be sipped slowly. And it's definitely the case that four martinis would have you on the floor,' he adds.
Noted. Here are three new recipes for a drink that's been in style for decades.
• 50ml Boatyard Double Gin• 25ml dry vermouth• 2 dashes orange bitters• Ice
1. A martini is always best served in a chilled glass, so before you build your drink, put your martini glass in the freezer to chill.2. Add all the ingredients to a mixing glass or cocktail shaker and fill it generously with ice. The key to a good martini is getting it ice cold while controlling dilution.3. Using a cocktail bar spoon, stir the ingredients with the ice for approximately 15-20 seconds.4. Strain into the chilled martini glass and garnish as you prefer. The garnish you use is totally up to preference. Pop a lemon peel over the martini or drop an olive or three into your glass. Enjoy.
Cocktails at Hawksmoor are deceptively simple-seeming drinks that belie the hours of painstaking research, travel, tastings and technique that the bar teams have put into them.
• 45ml vodka • 15ml gin• 15ml dry vermouth• 5ml pink onion pickle*
1. Stir all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass, garnish with a pink pickled onion**.
* To make the pickle
1. Dissolve 250g sugar and 5g salt into 500ml of rice wine vinegar.2. Heat the pickle and pour over two sliced red onions.3. Leave for a few hours until the liquid and the onions have gone a uniform pink colour.4. Strain and bottle the brine.
** To make the garnish onions
1. Add some of the pink brine to a drained jar of silverskin onions and leave to colour. For extra pinkness add some dried hibiscus flowers.
A smoky, peated twist on the classic martini — bold, elegant, and distinctly Irish, by Rachele Bonifacio, bar operations manager.
• 60ml Method & Madness gin• 15ml Antica Formula vermouth• 5ml Teeling Blackpitts Peated Single Malt Whiskey
1. Add all ingredients to a mixing glass filled with ice2. Stir until well chilled and properly diluted3. Strain into a Nick & Nora glass4. Garnish with a twist of orange peel, and enjoy.
