May 2-The Sour Apple Martini

The world has a lot of martini variations known as altern’atinis but the Appletini is one of the most popular behind only the Espresso Martini. When I went to bartending school this was one of the first I learned and it has stuck to me all this time. Unfortunately I was unable to find Sour Apple Puckers that were worth the time of day, so I made my own. All you need is 225 ml apple juice, 2 g malic acid, 3.2 g citric acid and 25 g sugar. You just combine them in a saucepan over heat unttil dissolved and boom, a great apple cordial. Also I recommend Martinelli’s apple juice is you don’t have a juicer to make it fresh.

Now let’s talk the history, it started when bar owner Loren “Lola” Dunsworth wanted a new cocktail featuring Ketel One Vodka and Sour Apple Puckers. She gave this challenge to bartender Adam Karston on July 4th 1996 and he gave what I would consider a poor effort even for the mid 90s cocktail culture. He only mixed equal parts Vodka and Apple Puckers with a splash of Sour Mix. At least thew sour mix was homemade otherwise I would say definitively that this was the least deserving cocktail to go mainstream. I still don’t think it is far from that distinction.

As you probably guessed this is not my favourite cocktail, even my least favourite cocktail, The Bloody Mary, is incredibly creative and unique, this one is just a less sour green apple warhead made alcoholic, but if thats what you want it’s better to just soak actual warheads in vodka. But hey if this cocktail is your thing I’m not here to say you are wrong, I’m just sharing my benign opinion that will change nothing in the world. Obviously this cocktail has an audience somewhere or it wouldn’t be #100 on the top list.

One more thing, I am using an adapted recipe for this cocktail because I had to use a homemade cordial. I will link the original one here https://www.diffordsguide.com/cocktails/recipe/1797/appletini-sour-apple-martini but if you want my specs with this homemade cordial let me know in the comments. Hopefully this is the only time I have to do this this summer. As I did before my Judge’s Rating is availible here if you want the full details https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Twx2HgIwwWwxacF7KhZQq5Jbr9_P08QGMSvA9LBIxQo/edit?tab=t.0 .

Thank you and have a good night.