GIN or VODKA

Recipes that pull a switcheroo n classic gin and vodka drinks

- Jack Bettridge

Two look-alike spirits, vodka and gin share an obvious kinship. It's not just that they're both clear and colorless, but because one is essentially the base for the other. Vodka is a neutral spirit, typically distilled from grains, that has more kick than flavor. Also a neutral spirit, gin is infused with juniper and a spectrum of exotic aromatics. Now, vodka makers have come up with a wealth of flavorings to rival gin's possibilities.

That, coupled with gin's rediscovery in the cocktail renaissance, suggests a reexamination of some of the classics of mixology. Here, we've taken drinks we historically know as gin recipes and tried them with vodka, and then turned the process about. These are some of the best results.

MARTINI

The Martini is spiritually ambiguous. Winston Churchill's version was made with gin; James Bond's almost invariably with vodka. Heritage is on the side of gin, but vodka in a Martini is now so common that many bartenders default to it unless you specify the former. The backstory is even less concrete. The forebearer of the drink was a 19th century cocktail called the Martinez, made with gin, red vermouth, bitters and maraschino liqueur. When the first transparent Martinis arrived around the turn of the century, they used gin and dry vermouth. It was 007 who crashed the party with vodka (first in print with the Vesper cocktail, which included gin and vodka, then on screen as "shaken, not stirred").

If you've never tasted the charms of gin with vermouth, you're in for a revelation. The two are conceptionally so alike: alcohol aromatized with a mix of botanicals, some shared, some complementary. It's a wondrous phenomenon, especially with a higher proportion of vermouth than usual.