The Vault Martini

Tony Chen, Vault Bar

SZ: You run a very popular martini night here on Thursdays.

TC: That’s right. In fact, we have two-for-one martinis every Thursday, Friday and Saturday. So we serve lot of martinis. This is a version made with 60ml of vodka, the same amount of strawberry purée and the same again of milk, plus a dash of white chocolate liqueur. I top it off with foam made from melted chocolate sauce mixed with cognac and whisked into a foam.

SZ: It’s the chocolate I can smell, right?

TW: That smells so good. The taste is good too. It’s very light. It’s a different style of martini completely. It’s on the other end of the spectrum from the last one we tried. It’s got the essence of strawberry, which works nicely with the chocolate.

CY: When we make a chocolate cocktail at M1NT, we don’t usually put any sour flavors into it. But here there’s sourness from the strawberry, which works very well, and I can taste the Cognac in the chocolate too, and the two work very well together.

CW: Is this still a martini? We’re a long way from just gin and vermouth.

TW: If it’s in a martini glass, it’s a martini.

CY: That’s right. A martini is a classic drink, but now it’s all freestyle. So much has changed, and you have to see it as an evolving drink.

TW: I totally agree. I’m not a purist in the slightest. From the perspective of the drinks industry, there are too many rules.

City Weekend: The glasses have changed, too, right? The classic three-martini lunch that we hear about from the ’50s–the glasses they were using were smaller than the cocktail glasses we use now.

TW: Undoubtedly. The glasses have grown a lot. In a book I found recently in London about cocktail lore, it said cocktails are not meant to be sweet, not meant to be sour, not meant to be strong, but they are meant to be enjoyed in two or three sips–in other words, in small glasses. From an enjoyment factor, you could decrease the cost and make an absolutely beautiful martini in a small glass.

SZ: Kiitos serve their martinis in small glasses.

CY: A lot of the Japanese places do.

City Weekend: So does The Shelter. I bet I’m the only person in Shanghai who drinks gin martinis at The Shelter.

Ingredients: 60ml 42Below vodka; 60ml milk; two spoons of fresh strawberry purée; dash of white chocolate liqueur; topped off with a whisked blend of Hennessy and chocolate sauce.

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