Many, Many Martinis With Bénédictine

A trio of herbal-sweet variations on the Martini/Martinez formula.

When I made the case for Bénédictine, I argued that its central use case was as a primary sweetener in Liqueur Sweetener Old Fashioneds like the Monte Carlo. But Bénédictine, like Cynar, is one of those bottles that has an almost mysterious capacity to mix into just about any cocktail format. 

We have already looked at some of the ways it can be incorporated into Manhattan-style drinks like the Vieux Carre and the Bobby Burns. But it works surprisingly well into Martini- or Martinez-esque drinks, adding an herbal-sweet undertone to the core gin/vermouth combo. 

Indeed, if you spend time paging through old cocktail books, you will find any number of Martini-adjacent drinks that combine gin, vermouth, and Bénédictine — and while some of the old ratios need to be tweaked for modern palates, the end results are pretty much always wonderful. 

Bookish cocktail enthusiasts know these drinks reasonably well: They all have entries in modern recipe books and online cocktail guides. They are not obscure, exactly. But they are underrated amongst the cocktail cognoscenti: You don’t see too many drinks like this on bar menus or online cocktail forums. 

But they are incredibly easy to make and quite delicious, adding a soft and subtle bit of sweet-spice intrigue to the Martini format. They should appeal to almost anyone who likes stirred and boozy cocktails — even those who find no-frills dry Martinis a little too thin.

So this week I want to make the case for the Bénédictine Martini via a trio of historic recipes first published between 1895 and 1937. 

Unlike last week’s Campari Martini, none of these drinks are gimmicks or jokes deadpan Norm MacDonald sense. These are all pretty obviously drinks in the Martini (or, relatedly the Martinez) family, built on gin and vermouth, and perhaps another ingredient or two, with Bénédictine as a modifier. 

What they show is just how many of these configurations work. You can’t quite combine gin, vermouth, and Bénédictine in any proportion and end up with a tasty drink. But the combination is more versatile than you might expect, which is why it’s been used by so many bartenders over such a long time. 

As a bonus, all of these drinks can be batched, diluted, and chilled in advance for parties or gatherings using the method I described a few weeks ago. You can make many, many Bénédictine-tinted variations on the Martini. Or, with a little bit of advance prep and batching, you can easily make many, many of the same Bénédictine-tinged Martini. Convenient!

Ford-a Win 

Let’s start with the oldest of the bunch.

This is a drink that dates all the way back to 1895, but remains delicious today with very little updating.