Name: Reverse Vesper Martini
Total time: 3 min
Cuisine: Cocktail
Ingredients: 30 ml Blanc quinquina/kina; 30 ml Aromatized wine; 10 ml Gin; 20 ml Vodka

Reverse Vesper Martini
Jump to

Serve in a Martini glass

Ingredients:
1 oz	Blanc quinquina/kina (e.g. Mattei Cap Corse, Bonal or Kina L'Aér
1 oz	Aromatized wine (e.g. Lillet Blanc)
¹⁄₃ oz	Hayman's London Dry Gin
²⁄₃ oz	Ketel One Vodka

Read about cocktail measures and measuring

How to make:

Select and pre-chill a Martini glass.
Prepare garnish of lemon zest twist.
SHAKE all ingredients with ice.
FINE STRAIN into chilled glass.
EXPRESS lemon zest twist over the cocktail and use as garnish.

Strength & taste guide:

No alcohol

Medium

Boozy

Sweet

Medium

Dry/sour

More cocktails with similar strength and taste profile

Review:

More a subtly fortified wine than a true "three and under the guest" Martini, but delightfully so with sherry-like wine notes and faint botanical influences. Some will say this should be stirred despite the 'Vesper' name. Shake boldly on, but with good ice.

View readers' comments

Variant:

classic Vesper Martini
May Vesper
Reverse Vesper Martini
Reversed Vesper & Tonic
Reversed Vesper & Tonic 'Martini'
Smoking Gun Vesper

History:

A riff on James Bond's preferred Vesper Martini by yours truly.

More cocktails by Simon Difford

Nutrition:

One serving of Reverse Vesper Martini contains 156 calories

Alcohol content:

1.2 standard drinks
18.6% alc./vol. (18.6° proof)
16.7 grams of pure alcohol

Difford’s Guide remains free-to-use thanks to the support of the brands in green above. Values stated for alcohol and calorie content, and number of drinks an ingredient makes should be considered approximate.

Join the discussion

Showing 5 comments for Reverse Vesper Martini.
See discussion in the Forum

Please log in to make a comment

Calvin Grant

29th June at 02:54

Kina L'Aéro and Lillet Blanc pair brilliantly here with just enough gin/vodka to cut the richness of the quinquina. Loved the lemon zest!

John CARR

27th September 2024 at 13:32

As Simon says, light, delicate, fruity and wine like. Very refreshing. Potentially a good introduction to cocktails for someone who isn’t sure or had bad experiences with strong alcohol. Especially white wine drinkers. The enriched fruitiness with cleansing after note of bitter is really very pleasant and moreish. Great summer drink, perhaps even garnished w a strawberry or similar… I’m thinking of my sister in law and the approaching Christmas (in Australia).

John CARR

27th September 2024 at 13:33

I used cocchi americano as no Lillet blanc to hand and other kinas are unavailable here.

1 reply

Ryan Harrold

6th June 2024 at 04:36

After making the Vespar Martini 2 days ago, I decided to make the Reverse Vespar Martini, since it’s quite similar although I didn’t have any Kina Lillet, so I ended up making it without the Kina Lillet, which turned out to be better then a regular Vespar Martini, but still not the greatest due to my palette either liking sweet or slightly dry drinks, but after adding a few dashes of orange bitters made the drink a little better and made the drink actually palatable

Steven Jepson

16th June 2023 at 22:16

I had forgotten about this one and it's has been at least a year.
Used a Roku Gin so switched the Lillet and vodka proportions to bring up the strength and used a Belvedere Vodka.
Why have I not come back to this before! The Tempus l'Areo is the key to this serve and cannot be changed as it brings such a flavour and depth.
A definite must try

Jacques Gaudin

14th May at 19:55

I totally agree that Tempis l'Aero really shines here. The quinine taste is more obvious than when I tasted it separately.

Steven Jepson

11th March 2022 at 20:31

I went with the Shake for an ice cold finish. Even with all the other ingredients the flavour of the Tempus Kina comes through with a lovely almost marmalade finish. This is a bold surprising sweeter than expected drink with a lovely mouth feel.