Valentine’s Day Cocktails – French Martini

The French Martini isn’t really French. It’s not really a Martini either. It’s unclear when it was invented or by whom, but it shows up in New York City in 1996, and starts a craze.

Until then, the word “Martini” almost exclusively referred to a spirit-forward mixture of gin or vodka, possibly with vermouth.

The previous “French Martinis” were subtle tweaks on the classic mold, while this one, the one that would become famous, obliterated it. It’s vodka, pineapple juice, and Chambord, not a Martini by any stretch of the imagination, but kept the name anyway, and the V-shaped glass for good measure.

In his Craft of the Cocktail, Dale DeGroff calls it “one of the sparks that got the cocktail-as-Martini craze started.”

Revisit the French Martini 25 years later, and the biggest surprise is not just that it’s still delicious, but how versatile of a template the recipe is.

You can put Chambord in there and it’s juicy and fleshy and sumptuous with vanilla, but the combination of vodka and pineapple juice can do a lot more.

Use creme de cassis, for a sharper, more adult French Martini, or you can go rogue and put Aperol in there, or Campari, or Benedictine, or Cynar.

Or Chartreuse, for that matter, or ginger, or falernum.

The worst thing it’ll be is insufficiently complex (vodka, tasting like nothing at all, sometimes has this problem).

The fact that it’s about as French as French Stewart is immaterial. It’s delicious. Isn’t that what matters?

• 1.5 oz. vodka
• 0.5–0.75 oz. berry liqueur
• 2 oz. pineapple juice

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake good and hard for about eight to 10 seconds.

Strain up into a conical glass (if it can have a zig-zag stem, all the better), and garnish with a piece of pineapple, or a raspberry and/or blackberry on a pick, or both, or neither.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Cosmo

When the Cosmo was perfected back in the late ’80s at Odeon in New York, it became ubiquitous and then shunned.

The problem is, people were drinking a lot of bad ones, sullying their opinion of the drink.

But you can make a great one.

Pay a little attention to the principles of balance and use the right stuff, however, and the Cosmopolitan becomes an absolutely delightful drink, juicy with citrus, bright with cranberry, surprisingly strong and impressively clean.

Made well, it’s an ideal cocktail for vodka fans who want something bright and fruity and not too sweet.

• 1.5 oz. Absolut Citron Vodka
• 0.75 oz. Cointreau
• 0.5 oz. to 0.75 oz. lime juice (to taste)
• 0.75 oz. cranberry juice cocktail

Add all the ingredients to a cocktail shaker, and shake well on ice for 10 to 12 seconds.

Strain into a stemmed glass (a classic Martini glass would be traditional, and if it can have a hopelessly ’90s Z-shaped stem, even better), garnish with an orange peel, and say something risque and impertinent.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Paper Plane

The Paper Plane is like a whiskey and orange juice that grew up handsome, and for whom everything is going right.

This crowd pleaser, invented by bartender Sam Ross in 2008, gets its charm from two different bittersweet Italian liqueurs, even though the resulting cocktail is neither particularly bitter nor sweet.

It is simple to make, and easy to like and might be the best cocktail invented in the last 100 years.

• 0.75 oz. bourbon
• 0.75 oz. lemon juice
• 0.75 oz. Amaro Nonino
• 0.75 oz. Aperol

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Wild Eyed Rose

The cocktail comes to us, like so many greats, from Hugo Ensslin’s 1916 Recipes for Mixed Drinks and the recipe most of us use is more or less the same as his—a healthy pour of Irish whiskey, with lime juice and some grenadine (pomegranate syrup) to sweeten.

It is much less famous than its sibling cocktail the Jack Rose (an otherwise identical mixture with apple brandy substituted for Irish whiskey, invented around the same time), but is a better drink.

One of the reasons Irish whiskey is currently overlooked for cocktails is because it is by tradition light and mild, but mildness is a strength all its own—subtle flavors that would get bulldozed by the blasting oak of something like bourbon are allowed to express their full selves.

In the Wild Eyed Rose, the voluptuous tartness of the grenadine gets to arc across the whole palate, supported by the warm light malt of the Irish whiskey and given a malic kiss at the end by the lime juice.

• 2 oz. Irish whiskey
• .75 oz. lime juice
• .75 oz. grenadine

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake for eight to 10 seconds, then either strain over fresh ice in a rocks glass or strain into a coupe or cocktails glass, up.

Garnish with a lime wheel, a couple pomegranate seeds or even nothing at all.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Siesta

The Siesta is a lovely drink, complex and dynamic, with seams so tight you can’t even find them.

It opens like a Margarita, with lime and tequila, transitions in the midpalate to the juicy grapefruit, and finishes with the herbal orange of the Campari amplifying grapefruit’s natural bitterness.

Nearly two decades after its creation, bartender Katie Stipe’s cocktail endures as one of the great tequila-based neo-classics, helping usher in a new era of agave-based drinks.

• 1.5 oz. blanco tequila
• 0.75 oz. lime juice
• 0.5 oz. grapefruit juice
• 0.5 oz. simple syrup
• 0.5 oz. Campari

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake good and hard for six to 10 seconds.

Strain up into a coupe or cocktail glass, or over fresh ice on the rocks, as you prefer, and garnish with a grapefruit peel or lime wheel.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – El Diablo

With a name like El Diablo (“the Devil” in Spanish) you might not expect a fruity and charming tequila sipper, but since “Trader” Vic Bergeron invented it in 1946, the El Diablo has been enchanting drinkers with its tart berries and gentle spice.

It’s a simple tequila version of a Moscow Mule, essentially, with a bit of the fruit liqueur creme de cassis making it juicy and the oaky richness of the aged tequila making it plush.

• 2 oz. reposado tequila
• 0.5 oz.–0.75 oz. lime juice, to taste
• 0.5 oz. creme de cassis
• 3-4 oz. ginger beer, to taste

Combine all ingredients over ice in a tall glass.

Stir briefly to combine and garnish with a couple blackberries on a pick, or a lime wedge, or both.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Rosita

Most tequila recipes are bright and refreshing, leaning on the spirit’s inherent affinity for sunshine.

The Rosita is the other kind. It’s a world away for Margaritas, another affair entirely—a cocktail bitter and sweet, darker and more complex.

It was modernized and popularized (twice!) by none other than early cocktail revivalist and notorious eccentric Gary “Gaz” Regan.

• 1.5 oz. reposado tequila
• 0.5 oz. Campari
• 0.5 oz. sweet vermouth
• 0.5 oz. dry vermouth
• 1 dash Angostura Bitters

Add all ingredients to a mixing glass with ice.

Stir for five to 10 seconds (if using very small ice) to 25 to 30 seconds (if using very large ice), strain either into a rocks glass over fresh ice or up, in a coupe, depending on your preference.

Garnish with a grapefruit peel.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Napoleon

Born in the California beach enclave of Montecito, the Napoleon comes by its refreshing summer vibes honestly, even if it is made with a seemingly unsummery spirit.

Sam Penton at the Manor Bar at the Rosewood Miramar took a high-proof bourbon and the basic structure of a whiskey sour and added some fruitiness and herbaceousness to make this a well-rounded cocktail.

The addition of strawberries, vermouth, and Campari are welcome modifiers to the old classic, and their sharpest edges are sanded off with the presence of an egg white to keep it as mellow as you want a summer drink to be.

• 1.5 oz. high-proof bourbon
• 0.5 oz. blanc vermouth (or “blanco” or “bianco”)
• 0.75 oz. Simple Syrup 
• 0.75 oz. lemon juice
• 3-4 fresh raspberries
• 1 tsp. Campari
• 1 egg white

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker without ice.

Seal the shaker, hold tight, and give it a “dry” shake without ice for three to five seconds.

Then add ice, seal again, and shake for eight to 10 seconds.

Fine strain into a coupe or cocktail glass.a rocks glass over fresh ice or up, in a coupe, depending on your preference. Garnish with a grapefruit peel.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Clover Club

Throughout its 120 year history the Clover Club—a gin sour, tarted up with fresh raspberries and smoothed out with an egg white—has been celebrated, then dismissed, then forgotten, and now, finally, is back on top.

• 2 oz. Hendrick’s Gin
• 0.75 oz. lemon juice
• 0.75 oz. simple syrup
• 3-5 fresh raspberries
• 1 egg white

Add all ingredients to a shaker tin.

“Dry” shake ingredients without ice for five seconds to whip the egg.

Add ice, seal tins and shake hard for 10 to 12 seconds.

Strain into coupe or martini glass, express a lemon peel over the top of the foam for aroma and discard and garnish with one to three raspberries, on a pick.

Valentine’s Day Cocktails – Pornstar Martini

Every year, the U.K.-based Difford’s Guide publishes a list of what they call the World’s Top 100 Cocktails.

It’s not an opinion piece, or an editorial endorsement—when they say “top” they mean by popularity, the list is ranked by web traffic, and is therefore objective and purely democratic.

Invented by bartender Douglas Ankrah at Townhouse in London, it’s made from vodka, vanilla, and passion fruit.

• 1.5 oz. vodka
• 0.75 oz. lime juice
• 0.75 oz. vanilla syrup
• 0.75 oz. passion fruit liqueur or passion fruit syrup

Add all ingredients to a cocktail shaker with ice and shake hard for eight to 10 seconds.

Strain into a martini glass, and garnish with a lime wheel, a lime peel, or, if you’re feeling rich, a half passion fruit bobbing in the top of the drink.

Serve alongside a sidecar of Champagne or other sparkling wine, if you wish.