Very much enjoyed this version. As much as I love Duke's Bar and respect Alessandro Palazzi, I have to say I prefer Difford's version, in part because from personal experience on previous trips to London, Duke's recipe at 3.9 standard drinks puts you on the floor, especially before dinner! I did however use as his preferred / suggested vermouth, 1/3 oz English Sacred vermouth, the advertised equivalent to Kina Lillet which is no longer produced, instead of the replacements as given in this recipe. I have no way of knowing if it truly replicates Kina Lillet, its inclusion here produces an excellent drink, and at least for this drink, I highly recommend it.

I tried it with Plymouth Original Strength Gin and bacon fat washed Absolut Vodka. Almost blew me away :)

I rather like this martini and generally use the books quantities
6 shots Old Tom
2 shots Chopin Potato Vodka
1 shot Tempus Fugit Kina Aero d'Or
1 shot water
All into a glass bottle and placed in the freezer for 24 hours.
I find it makes two good serves bottle shaken with the water allowing for dilution.

Thanks to John Carr (below) for the link to a great story! This is likely my favorite dry martini variant - I have Cocchi Americano Blanco and Lillet Blanco, and I prefer the Cocchi to the Lillet so I used that for the "vermouth". I also find the volume of the cocktail too much, so I scale it down. That said, when I'm in the mood for a dry martini - this is my favorite.

The real star of the story is actually this lady, who I just found out about https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-67298675

One of the injustices of patriarchal and racist history is that Ian Fleming is (rightly) a household name, whereas even more incredible people like Krystyna are unknown.

Tried with monkey 47 gin as per their website spec: 60 gin, 15 vodka, 7.5 Lillet ( in my case Cocchi americano). Delicious and certainly emphasises the outstanding gin, tho perhaps not entirely balanced.

As someone who’s not a fan of dry styled drinks, I still decided to make the Vespar Martini anyways and just like what Avery said, I also wasn’t a fan of this as well, although I’m going to try the Reverse Vespar Martini next and see how that goes, although I don’t have high hopes but can’t say it’s bad until I try it

I uh...no, sorry. I think you *really* need to be a fan of martinis in general to enjoy this. This really, really is not for me and by the time I got halfway through it was so warmed up that it was undrinkable for my palate.