Lemon Drop Martini with a dried lemon wheel.
The Lemon Drop is a vodka cocktail that earns its keep. Tart, cold, sugar-rimmed, served up. It's the drink you order when you want something that tastes like lemonade but behaves like a martini. No apologies for it.
The dried lemon does the finishing work. It rests across the rim or floats on the surface, clean and flat, where a fresh slice would just slide down the side and pool sugar into the drink.
What you'll need
- 50ml vodka
- 20ml triple sec (Cointreau)
- 20ml fresh lemon juice
- 10ml sugar syrup (1:1 sugar to water)
- Caster sugar, for the rim
- 1 dried lemon wheel
- Ice, to shake
How to make it
- Run a fresh lemon wedge around the rim of a chilled coupe, then dip the rim in caster sugar.
- Add the vodka, triple sec, lemon juice, and sugar syrup to a shaker with ice.
- Shake hard for 10 seconds until the tin is frosted.
- Double strain into the prepared coupe, keeping the sugar rim intact.
- Lay a dried lemon wheel across the surface or rest it on the rim.
Why dried beats fresh here
The sugar rim is the whole personality of this drink, and a wet fresh slice is its enemy. Fresh fruit drips down the inside of the glass, dissolves the sugar, and leaves you with a soggy rim before you've taken a sip.
A dried wheel is bone dry, so it can sit on the rim or float on top without touching the sugar. It looks sharp against the pale drink and gives a lemon note on the nose without watering anything down.
Use the Lemon jar, about 25 wheels, plenty for a run of martinis without reaching for a knife.