The One Drink and the No-Drink
The Face Card Never Declines: Lychee, Rose, and Vodka Martini
Lychee and rose can both behave like a perfume counter during a power outage. This one keeps rose at a teaspoon, or off the liquid entirely, and lets the vermouth hold the drink up.
Serve alongside
Cold shrimp with lemon, or potato chips straight out of the bag. A rose-and-lychee martini is perfume and cold, and it is genuinely improved by something salty and slightly undignified sitting next to it.
Tools
Shaker and jigger. A fine strainer earns its keep here, because canned lychee juice carries pulp you will not see until it is floating. A small stemmed glass and room in the freezer for it. An eyedropper, or a clean squeeze bottle, for the saline.
Ingredients · swaps in parentheses
Vodka (a restrained floral gin). Dry vermouth, kept cold. Lychee juice, unsweetened if you can find it. Lemon. Rose syrup. Saline solution. One chilled lychee for the pick.
Magic
Take the rose out of the liquid and put it on the glass. Wipe one drop of rose syrup around the inside lip of the frozen glass, or leave a drop on the lychee before it goes on the pick. Rose becomes the first thing you smell and never a thing you taste, which is the version of rose most people actually wanted. Not feeling brave? Keep the teaspoon in the shaker and start at half.
Gotcha
Tired vermouth. Half an ounce from a bottle that has been standing on the counter since spring flattens the whole drink, and you will spend the evening blaming the lychee. Refrigerate it after opening. If it smells like sherry, it is finished.
Rose syrup should be measured with a spoon, not poured according to how the day went. One teaspoon in a drink this size is already assertive, and the syrups vary enough between brands that a heavy hand turns a martini into something you smell from the next room. If the bottle you own is the intense kind, start at 1/2 teaspoon and build up.
That is the only genuinely fragile decision in the build. Everything else is straightforward: vodka for a clean frame, dry vermouth for herbs and wine acidity, lychee for its particular musky sweetness, lemon to put an edge back on, and two drops of saline to stop the fruit reading like candy.
The particulars
Prep time: 7 minutes
Makes: 1 drink
Glassware: chilled Nick & Nora
Equipment: shaker, jigger, fine strainer
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 ounces vodka
- 1/2 ounce fresh dry vermouth
- 3/4 ounce lychee juice
- 1/2 ounce fresh lemon juice
- 1 teaspoon rose syrup
- 2 drops saline solution
- 1 chilled lychee
The pour, drawn to scale
- vodka1 1/2 ounces46%
- fresh dry vermouth1/2 ounce15%
- lychee juice3/4 ounce23%
- fresh lemon juice1/2 ounce15%
Build
- Chill the glass thoroughly, in the freezer if you have the room.
- Combine all liquid ingredients in a shaker with solid ice.
- Shake for 12 seconds.
- Double-strain into the chilled glass.
- Garnish with one lychee on a short pick.
What the saline is for
Two drops of salt solution is not seasoning in the way it sounds. Salt suppresses the perception of bitterness and sharpens fruit, so the lychee stops tasting like syrup-in-general and starts tasting like lychee specifically. It also takes the edge off vodka. If the drink tastes correct on paper and dull in the mouth, this is almost always the missing piece, and adding sugar instead makes it worse.
Glass and ice
A small stemmed glass and nothing in it. A drink served with no ice has one temperature window and it closes fast, so the glass has to arrive cold rather than cool. If the freezer is full, fill the glass with ice and water while you measure and dump it right before you strain.
Use big solid cubes in the tin and shake for the stated 12 seconds. Longer is not better here; the drink is small and over-dilution shows up immediately as a thin, watery finish.
Batching
For six drinks, combine 9 ounces vodka, 3 ounces vermouth, 4 1/2 ounces lychee juice, 3 ounces lemon, 2 tablespoons rose syrup, and 12 drops saline. Refrigerate for up to four hours, then shake individual portions with ice.
Four hours is the honest limit, and it is the lemon setting it. Past that the citrus loses its top note and the vermouth starts to taste tired even if the bottle was fresh. If you want to work further ahead, batch the vodka, vermouth, rose, and saline the night before, and add lemon and lychee an hour out.
Chill the lychees for the garnish in their own syrup, drained onto a paper towel just before service. A room-temperature lychee dropped into a cold martini warms it faster than you would expect for something that small.
The zero-proof route
Take out the vodka and vermouth and something has to replace both the structure and the dryness, which juice will not do. Use 1 1/2 ounces strongly brewed chilled white tea, 3/4 ounce lychee juice, 1/2 ounce lemon, 1 teaspoon rose syrup, 2 drops saline, and a short splash of soda at the end. Shake the still ingredients, strain, then add the soda in the glass.
Brew the tea stronger than you would drink it. Weak tea leaves a drink that is pleasant and slightly hollow in the middle, and the tannin is the entire reason it is there.
What to eat with it
Salty and sharp. Salt-and-pepper shrimp, cucumber with chili and lime, good potato chips, fried things generally. The drink is aromatic and low in sugar, so it can sit next to spice without either one giving way.
One thing worth knowing before you start: the bottle of rose syrup you buy for this will outlast the vodka, the vermouth, the lychees, and possibly the refrigerator.
Part of Drinks & Zero-Proof.
