Citrus Martini
Shake ∙ 3 min ∙ 19.6% ABV ∙
The Citrus Martini is a shaken vodka sour built on citron vodka, triple sec, fresh lemon juice, and sugar syrup, served up with an orange twist. Tart lemon leads, citron vodka and orange liqueur bring a soft citrus-peel sweetness behind it, and a faint bitters spice lingers on the finish.
Ingredients
1
Servings
Garnish
Instructions for 1 serving
- Pre-chill a glass
- Shake all ingredients with ice: Citron vodka 45 mlTriple sec 10 mlLemon juice 30 mlSugar syrup 10 mlOrange bitters 3 dashes
- Fine strain into the chilled glass
- Express an orange twist over the cocktail and use as garnish
Tips
- Shake all ingredients hard with plenty of cracked ice for a full 10-15 seconds to properly dilute and chill this citrus-forward mix before straining.
- Fine-strain into a chilled martini glass to catch any ice shards and pulp from the fresh lemon juice, keeping the surface clear.
- Add the orange bitters into the shaker before shaking, not as a float after, so they integrate evenly with the citron vodka and lemon juice.
- Express the orange twist over the drink's surface to release its oils, then rub it around the rim before dropping it in as garnish.
History
The Citrus Martini has no separately documented inventor, bar, or year; it belongs to the wave of vodka-based "Neo-Martinis" that took over cocktail menus in the 1990s, built simply by shaking citron vodka with triple sec and citrus juice and serving it up in a V-shaped glass. It sits close kin to the Lemon Drop Martini, sharing the same core of citron vodka, triple sec, and lemon juice, and its rise tracks the popularity of citrus-flavored vodkas such as Absolut Citron, launched in 1988 and later credited with helping inspire the Cosmopolitan.
It is essentially a citrus-forward member of the Fruit Martini family, the umbrella term for the fresh-fruit-and-vodka drinks that emerged and became fashionable in London during the 1990s, closely associated with the Met Bar, before spreading through American and British bars alike. Where the wider Fruit Martini category ran to whatever fruit was on the bar's fruit bowl (watermelon, raspberry, melon, and the like), the Citrus Martini narrows that formula to citrus juice and citrus-flavored vodka, giving it a tart, sour-leaning profile rather than the sweeter, muddled-fruit style of its siblings.
