Shaken or stirred? Dry or wet? Olive or lemon? There are endless ways to enjoy a Martini.
Every seasoned Martini drinker has their own perfect ratio, but for those still figuring it out, these three alternative recipes show you what the classic cocktail can be.
True to form, these recipes are all low-lift for the home bartender. Each can easily be recreated with modest preparation (and a well-stocked liquor cabinet).
How 321 Cocktails Works
321 Cocktails offers three meaningful alternatives to the world’s most popular classic cocktails, suited to the beginner, intermediate, and expert at-home bartender.
The Twist: The easiest of the three, the Twist changes the classic recipe with subtle ingredient swaps and simple additions. Easy to do, with tasty results.
The Upgrade: Often calling for custom ingredients that require a touch of preparation, the Upgrade is suited to the ambitious at-home bartender looking to impress guests.
The Maverick: If you’ve been making cocktails at home for a while and are ready to take them to the next level, try the Maverick. These bar-grade variations may have you hunting for niche ingredients in specialist stores, but the results are spectacular.
Origins of the Martini
The Martini is constantly evolving, and true to form, this classic cocktail emerged slowly rather than all at once. Its likely ancestor, the Martinez, appears in O.H. Byron’s The Modern Bartenders’ Guide (1884), described as a Manhattan with gin in place of whiskey.
The earliest Martinis used sweet vermouth, which is where the term “dry Martini” comes from: it originally meant one made with dry vermouth instead. You’ll rarely find a Martini made with sweet vermouth now, so dry and wet have come to mean how much vermouth goes in. Five parts gin to one part vermouth is the modern standard, though the exact ratio remains the bartender’s choice.
The Classic Martini
There are so many ideas about what a Martini should be that to claim there is one classic recipe immediately opens a debate. But for all the opinions around dry, wet, and split ratios, we believe a classic martini should be five parts gin to one part vermouth – dry enough for the gin to lead, with just enough vermouth to soften the edges. The garnish? That’s up to you.
Ingredients
2.5oz (75ml) London dry gin
0.5oz (15ml) dry vermouth
Lemon peel or olive (garnish)
Method
Combine the gin and dry vermouth in a mixing glass with ice. Stir until very cold and well diluted, then strain into a chilled Martini glass or coupe. Express a lemon peel over the drink and drop it in, or garnish with an olive.
The Twist: Casino Royale
The Martini is synonymous with Ian Fleming’s James Bond. His Vesper Martini first appeared in Casino Royale in 1953, combining Gordon’s gin, vodka, and the long-lost Kina Lillet in one famously potent serve. My modern interpretation, a recipe that features in my book Tiny Cocktails, keeps Bond’s spirit while bringing the drink into the present. The Casino Royale Martini feels both classic and contemporary – elegant, aromatic, and dangerously easy to drink, whether served tiny or full-sized.
Ingredients
- 2oz (60ml) Konik’s Tail vodka
- 0.5oz (15ml) Sipsmith London dry gin
- 0.25oz (7.5ml) Noilly Prat extra dry vermouth
- 0.25oz (7.5ml) Mancino Bianco vermouth
- 1 teaspoon (5ml) Italicus
- 2 dashes Angostura orange bitters
- Lemon peel (garnish)
- Cold olive (garnish)
Method
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until the contents are chilled and diluted. Strain the mixture into a chilled coupe or Martini glass. Express the lemon peel over the drink and discard. Garnish with a cold olive.
Note: To serve this in a tiny format, this portion serves two, or cut the recipe in half and serve in a tiny chilled coupe.
The Upgrade: Bar Leone’s Filthy Martini
If you want to impress your guests at home, look no further than this signature Martini from the world’s best bar of 2025. Hong Kong’s Bar Leone takes the dirty Martini and turns the dial all the way up. The base is vodka, but the real star is the bar’s house-smoked olive brine, which brings a barbecue-like smokiness to the drink alongside all that salty, savory goodness.
The olives themselves are smoked with cherrywood before being returned to their brine, creating a simple iteration on the dirty ‘tini that encapsulates the Bar Leone way: take something familiar, obsess over the details, and make it seriously delicious (and Italian).
Ingredients
- 2.25oz (70ml) Ketel One vodka
- 0.5oz (15ml) smoked olive brine*
- Smoked olive (garnish)
Method
Combine the vodka and smoked olive brine with ice in a mixing glass and stir until very cold. Strain into a chilled Martini glass and garnish with a smoked olive.
Custom ingredients
Cherrywood-smoked olives and brine*
- High-quality pitted olives, such as Nocellara
- Cherrywood chips
Method: Remove olives from their brine and reserve the liquid. Place the olives in a wide-based vessel, which must fit within whichever smoking chamber you use. To smoke the olives, use a smoking gun that comes with a smoking chamber.
Contain the olives in the chamber, then add cherrywood chips to the smoking gun and burn the wood. Let the smoke fill the chamber, and allow the olives to infuse for at least one hour. Once the olives have been smoked, add them back into their brine to rest for about an hour – this creates the smoked olive brine for the Filthy Martini. Use the brine within two weeks.
The Maverick: Olive Martini
The dirty Martini isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Do it right, and it’s briny with the base spirit’s character still pronounced. Do it wrong, and it’s like drinking a glass of spiked olive brine.
My Olive Martini is a “clean-dirty” recipe, balancing fresh and citrusy with briny and savory. Olive oil-washed gin made from Chardonnay grapes and olive bitters lends a more compelling savory profile that’s both aromatic and tasteful, while a beautiful brandy delivers on freshness with white grape and stone fruit. Tempered with a flourish of vermouth, it’s the Martini best kept stocked in your freezer to enjoy at a moment’s notice.
Ingredients
- 2oz (60ml) EVOO-washed Renais gin*
- 1oz (30ml) Singani 63 brandy
- 0.5oz (15ml) Noilly Prat extra dry vermouth
- 2 dashes The Bitter Truth olive bitters
- Lemon EVOO (garnish)
- Olive (garnish)
Method
Combine all ingredients in a mixing glass with ice and stir until chilled and diluted. Strain into a chilled coupe or Martini glass, then garnish with one olive and two drops of lemon extra virgin olive oil.
Custom ingredients
Extra virgin olive oil-washed Renais gin*
- 17oz (500ml) Renais gin
- 50g organic extra virgin olive oil, such as Citizens of Soil (10%)
Method: Pour water into a large container and set your immersion circulator to 40°C to heat your sous vide bath. While waiting for the bath to get up to temperature, pour the gin and olive oil into a vacuum bag, seal it, then add the bag to the sous vide bath and gently cook for two hours. Remove the bag from the bath, let it rest until it comes to room temperature, then put the sealed bag in the freezer overnight to freeze the fats. Filter the contents through a coffee filter-lined funnel and bottle. Store in the fridge for one month.
Alternatively, if you don’t have the capacity to cook sous vide, combine the olive oil and gin in a Ziploc bag and infuse at room temperature for at least four hours, then proceed with the freezing and filtering method as described.
