how to make a silver cocktail..with gin and vermouth.

Silver cocktail is a prohibition era cocktail from early 20th century. As with many cocktails of the era it uses equal quantity of Gin and Dry Vermouth. It uses a big splash of maraschino liqueur as well to alter the taste. The quality of Gin during the prohibition was not the best, to say the least. This caused many drinks and cocktails to be made with larger proportion of other ingredients such as vermouth to mask the taste of the base spirit.

This drink has not been a very popular one over the years. The Silver Cocktail or martini is an unusual drink with a lot of flavor. Do not mistake this drink for another drink named Silver Bullet. The maraschino and the orange bitters are quite strong in flavor, which means sticking to the proportion is a wise thing to do. Even a slightly large proportion of either these ingredients can ruin the drink as it will mask the flavors of other ingredients.

You can however vary the proportion of the sugar syrup in the recipe to sweeten the drink to suit your taste.

Ingredients

  • 2 shots of Gin
  • 2 shots of Dry Vermouth
  • 1/4 shot of Maraschino Liqueur
  • 1/4 shot of Sugar Syrup
  • Couple of dashes of Orange bitters
  • Lemon peel for garnish

Recipe/Preparation

  1. Add ice cubes to a martini shaker
  2. Add 2 shots of Gin into the shaker
  3. Add 2 shots of Dry vermouth into the shaker
  4. Add 1/4 shot of Maraschino Liqueur
  5. Add a big splash of Sugar Syrup (about 1/4 shot)
  6. Shake the contents of the shaker well
  7. Add couple of dashes of orange bitters into a chilled martini glass
  8. Swirl the bitters around to evenly coat the glass
  9. Strain the contents of shaker into the martini glass
  10. Garnish with a lemon peel
Silver Martini Cocktail with Gin

Variations and Similar Drinks

There aren’t any drinks that could be categorized as a true variation of this. That probably has to do some thing with the popularity of the drink itself, as it was not a very popular drink. The drink also has quite a few ingredient in a delicate proportion. The closest to the Silver cocktail might be the martini from the same period which used equal proportion of Gin and Vermouth as in this recipe.

Tips

  • You can use a table spoon of super fine sugar if you do not have sugar syrup handy. Shake it well to completely dissolve the sugar.
  • Go easy on the Maraschino as it is pretty strong and flavorful and can alter the taste of the drink dramatically when used in excess.
  • You can add the bitters into the shaker along with other ingredients instead of swirling it in the glass. I just prefer not to shake with bitters.