Czarina – David Embury

1 part French vermouth

1 part Italian vermouth

6 parts vodka

3 or 4 parts apricot brandy to each drink

Stir

Note that this is a VODKA MEDIUM MARTINI or VODKA PERFECT with the addition of a little apricot flavour. A different version of the Czarina calls for equal parts of pineapple juice and vodka with a dash of bitters

 

Last night after finishing the husky vodka in kangaroo cocktails we found a bottle of unopened vodka and had a last drink with this while finishing the Sala, what followed was several hours of horrible alcohol poisoning sickness from about 3am onwards. And Friday has been a little shaky because of it. Wish I’d taken a pic of the bottle before we threw it away this morning, it was oval in shape and had a picture of a quails egg on the front is all I can remember.

This has obviously impacted our day, and my taste buds, let alone desire to have a drink. After a delicious chicken heart stew with buckwheat dinner I felt a little more fortified and thought we’d try a Czarina.

The apricot I’ve been using is Cartron’s Apricot Brandy, which I think has too much sugar for this recipe, I think this would work much better with an eau de vie than this product, something to look for on returning.

David also touches on this being a VODKA MEDIUM MARTINI or VODKA PERFECT, I spoke on the perfect Manhattan post about how you had sweet, perfect or dry options, David has added sweet perfect and dry options for his martini’s as well, which I don’t remember seeing anywhere else. He’s delightfully scathing about it too, with the following appearing beneath his recipe for a ‘Perfect Martini’.

“This Cocktail also goes under the name of the PERFECT. Someone once said that whoever named near-beer was a darned poor judge of distance, I say that whoever named the ‘Perfect’ was a mighty poor judge of perfection”

This was not a great drink, I suspect due to the Apricot ‘Brandy’ unless I get my hands on some eau de vie this isn’t something I’ll be trying again.