The Ingredients

70 ml Gin, 5 ml Sake, Olive

How To make a Saketini

Pour the ingredients into a mixing glass filled with ice. Stir well. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with an olive. Serve.

Social and Cocktail says:

The Saketini is a slightly acquired taste, but sake fans, which we confess to be, will find it refreshing and pleasing on the palate. The name Saketini is another example of the popular trend to use the suffix “-tini” – which derived from the classic Martini cocktail, but now more applies to drinks which are served in a martini cocktail glasses

In the Saketini cocktail, the sake is essentially doing the role vermouth does in the classic martini recipe. Sake is essentially an alcoholic beverage which has its origins in Japan and is still hugely popular in that country. Sake is sometimes referred to as a rice wine but in reality, it is more akin to beer because it is fermented from grain. There are many types of sake available and hence it can have many flavour notes, however the most common are fruits and flowers.

The origins of the Saketini cocktail are not completely clear, but one story is that it was invented by a chef called Matsuda San who first introduced the drink at a World Fair in New York in 1964. Some sake purists were not happy that their precious drink was being tampered with,but this did not stop the drink becoming popular in bars in both America and Europe during the 1990s

Although the standard garnish for this drink is the traditional olive you can create a more exotic look to this drink by adding an Asian fruit such as a lychee or star fruit.

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