At New York’s Clemente Bar, the namesake cocktail is a Martini celebrating Francesco Clemente’s worldly cross-pollination. As a younger man, the Italian-born artist—who partnered with chef Daniel Humm on the bar house and whose authentic work adorn the partitions—left Naples for India. When Clemente Bar’s beverage director, Sebastian Tollius, wished to seize this mashup of cultures in a cocktail, he landed on utilizing olive oil–washed Italian vodka and gin infused with curry paste and inexperienced curry chutney. When it comes time to construct the drink, he spritzes the glass with saffron liqueur.
The Clemente Martini belongs to a swell of latest Martinis displaying off the magnificence and vary of saffron as a cocktail element. Only a few neighborhoods south of Clemente Bar’s dwelling inside Eleven Madison Park, you’ll find the Zaffri’s Tini at Raf’s. Named for one more Italian, on this case a Sicilian pooch beloved by the dine-in bakery and bar’s homeowners, the drink options Spanish gin infused in-house with Sicilian-grown saffron, Centerbe Giallo—a bottling from Brooklyn’s Faccia Brutto that options saffron in its botanical make-up—and an off-dry vermouth.
“I’ve at all times liked saffron,” says Raf’s head bartender, Christian Jensen. “It’s such a singular taste that I may at all times put my finger on, even within the smallest dose.”
The saffron Martini has additionally popped up at Portland Hunt + Alpine Membership in Portland, Maine. The model there, aptly named the Saffron Martini, is a 50/50 break up of gin and blanc vermouth, plus honey syrup and a dose of Handshake Digestif Bitters, a neighborhood product that counts saffron as considered one of its key botanicals. The cocktail rolled off of the menu lately, however co-owner Andrew Volk says it stays callable any day.
With its distinctive floral but earthy heat, saffron places a very festive spin on the traditional Martini, excellent for this time of 12 months. To deliver the magic dwelling, the freezer Martini format turns the saffron-inflected drink into one thing worthy of being gifted or just shared across the vacation desk.
Volk, Tollius and Jensen every arrived at related steering on how greatest to work with saffron, together with getting probably the most mileage out of the product—no small concern given its excessive price. (Every crocus flower produces just a few threads of saffron, which should be harvested by hand, therefore the steep worth.)
In making a spirit infusion, Volk says saffron pairs properly with the natural palate of gin, but additionally frivolously aged agave spirits, equivalent to reposado tequila, and grassy expressions of rhum agricole. Begin with 5 to 10 threads of saffron for the standard 750-milliliter bottle and easily infuse at room temperature, then pressure. Supplementing the infusion with baking spices like cardamom and cinnamon is a pleasant optionally available contact, Volk suggests.
“The most important trick is discovering the suitable stability,” says Jensen. “Saffron can usually grow to be too pungent in taste and take over the palate. I’ve discovered that tasting alongside the best way, and about an hour of infusion, offers the proper stability.”
In constructing a saffron-infused Martini, all three bartenders recommend utilizing both a blanc vermouth or a break up of blanc and dry. Not solely does this contribute a measure of refined sweetness, the blanc vermouth enhances the physique of the drink—key to unlocking the specified richness of any freezer cocktail price its frost.
