Gingerbread cookies is one of the staples during Christmas season in the Nordics. Whenever there’s coffee there’s also a little box of gingerbread showing up, from early December until the end of the twelve days of Christmas. The smell and taste just screams Christmas and is a very powerful trigger in addition to just being a good sweet.
One of the best surprises I’ve had when it comes to food was when I had an early, Asian/Nordic fusion Christmas dinner. On the drink menu was a Gingerbread Martini which was just like eating gingerbread cookies but in the form of a perfectly balanced Martini. The restaurant used crushed gingerbread cookies and muddled oranges to infuse the vodka which was mixed with ginger syrup and a little lemon. I decided that I needed to try this myself but wanted to start all the way from scratch with the basic ingredients. This makes this drink a little more pure even though it doesn’t generate the “I’m drinking gingerbread” experience that the original version does.
This is not a Martini you drink dry or without the twist. It shouldn’t be a sour either, but a little bit of lemon brightens and balances the cocktail. Add a little more lemon and you get something that should be called a Gingerbread Daiquiri, which is still nice but quite different from what we want here. For me, this is a very Nordic cocktail which means that Absolut vodka is preferred, but any vodka or light rum should do fine.
Gingerbread Vodka Martini
2 cocktails, 1 minute
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Gingerbread vodka infusion
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Dark syrup
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Finishing
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