About the Recipe
The Mirepoix Martini, like many of my cocktails, was inspired by one question: "Can I get away with this?" The answer, based on the feedback of the adventurous souls who ordered this drink from me, is yes. If I wanted to be fully accurate, this should probably be called the "Mirepoix Martinez," given its usage of sweet vermouth over dry, but this drink was already hard enough to sell to skeptical guests, and everyone has at least a baseline idea of what a martini is. Should you go through the many steps necessary to make this drink, you'll be rewarded with a cocktail that is equal parts savory, sweet, herbal, and tannic.
Ingredients
1 1/2 oz. Mirepoix-infused Gin Mare Capri gin
1/2 oz. Cocchi di Torino sweet vermouth
1/2 oz. Dolin Chambéryzette Aperitif
1/8 oz. Pinot noir reduction
6 drops Bouquet Garnit tincture
6 drops 15% Citric acid solution
For garnish: lemon peel
Preparation
Stir all ingredients over ice, then strain into a chilled coupe. Express the lemon peel over the drink, then drop it into the glass.
For mirepoix-infused gin:
Heat 200g of olive oil over medium heat in a large pan. Chop 250g of peeled carrot, 250g of celery, and 500g of yellow onion. Add chopped vegetables to oil and cook down, stirring frequently, until they are slightly browned. Take off heat and strain vegetables out of the oil. Combine this oil with your gin in a large container in a 1:5 ratio by weight (i.e., if you have 200g of infused oil, combine it with 1000g of gin). Give the mix a good stir before placing it in the freezer overnight. When you remove it from the freezer, the oil should have formed a solid puck of fat on the top of your container. Poke a hole through this fat puck and strain out the infused gin through a coffee filter.
For pinot noir reduction:
Simmer pinot noir of choice in a pot over medium-low heat until it has reduced to roughly half of its original volume and coats the back of a spoon.
For citric acid solution:
Combine 15g of citric acid with 100g of water and stir to combine.
For bouquet garnit tincture:
Combine 5g each of dried parsley, thyme, and bay leaves with 250ml of neutral vodka in an iSi whipper. Charge your whipper once and shake for a few seconds. Use an additional charger yo charge your whipper once more, then shake again for roughly 30 seconds. Let this rest in the whipper for 30 minutes, briefly shaking again every few minutes. After 30 minutes have elapsed, vent your whipper and wait for the bubbling to stop before straining through a coffee filter.
p.s. this technique is adapted from Dave Arnold's Liquid Intelligence, which is a fantastic book for anyone interested in the art of cocktailing.