Dissolve a heaping bar spoon of orange marmalade in 1⅔ oz (50 ml) gin before any ice goes in. Then add Cointreau and lemon juice, ½ oz (15 ml) of each, shake hard and strain. That's the breakfast martini, a London cocktail from 1996: three minutes' work, with one spoonful supplying both the sugar and the bitter edge.
The drink belongs to Salvatore Calabrese. Difford's Guide tells the story: a man who usually took nothing more than an espresso in the morning was sat down by his English wife, Sue, to toast and marmalade. The idea came from that breakfast, and he finished the recipe at the Library Bar in London's Lanesborough Hotel. Harry Craddock's Savoy Cocktail Book had printed a Marmalade Cocktail back in 1930, but Calabrese credits the breakfast table and not the book.
It isn't a martini in the vermouth-and-gin sense. The build is closer to a gin sour, with marmalade where the sugar would go. Calabrese calls it his signature drink and puts its appeal down to texture and the bittersweet edge of the peel. That makes it a sensible drink for New Year's Day, when the table already has toast on it and nobody wants anything heavy.
Breakfast martini recipe
Adapted from Calabrese's own recipe and the Difford's Guide version. We haven't changed the proportions; the change is the marmalade. Makes one cocktail in about three minutes, with nothing to cook.
Ingredients
- 1 heaping bar spoon (about 1 teaspoon / 5 ml) orange marmalade (the Navel is our pick: Navel Orange Marmalade)
- 1⅔ oz (50 ml) London dry gin
- ½ oz (15 ml) Cointreau or another triple sec
- ½ oz (15 ml) lemon juice, squeezed to order
- Ice
- A strip of orange peel, to finish
- A small triangle of toast, optional
Method
- Chill a coupe or cocktail glass in the freezer.
- Put the marmalade and the gin in the base of a shaker, with no ice.
- Stir until nothing is left undissolved but shreds of peel.
- Add the Cointreau and lemon juice.
- Add ice to the top of the tin and shake hard until the metal frosts.
- Double strain through a fine-mesh strainer into the chilled glass.
- Twist the orange peel over the surface to release its oil, then drop it in or discard it.
- Set the toast on the rim if you're using it.
Notes
- Serving six or more: stirring each spoonful into gin eats the morning. The night before, heat marmalade with an equal measure of water until it runs, sieve out the shreds, and chill it; a jar of it holds in the fridge for roughly a fortnight. Build one test drink with the syrup first. Watered down, it won't match the spoonful measure for measure.
- Garnish: Calabrese shreds orange peel over the top. Difford's expresses a twist and adds the toast. Either is correct.
- Peel size: Difford's suggests a fine-cut or shredless jar, since big pieces of peel are harder to dissolve. Any orange marmalade cut that way will do.
Swapping in a California marmalade
Calabrese's recipe asks for a fine-cut orange marmalade and leans on its bitterness. A California jar behaves a little differently, mostly in sweetness and how much peel it carries.
| Usual ingredient | Our swap | What changes | How to adjust |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fine-cut orange marmalade | Navel Orange Marmalade | Sweeter and less bitter than a Seville-style jar | Keep the proportions; express the orange peel generously over the top for bitterness |
| Fine-cut orange marmalade | Valencia Orange Marmalade | Our sweetest jar, low in acid | Keep the full ½ oz lemon; start with a level spoon and taste |
| Fine-cut orange marmalade | Meyer or Eureka lemon marmalade | More acid, less orange | Pull the lemon juice back slightly |
| Fine-cut orange marmalade | Duncan grapefruit marmalade | Bitter and lightly tannic | Use the full heaping spoon; finish with grapefruit peel |
Marmalade earns its place in a shaken drink because it is sweet and bitter at once. The pectin also gives the drink a little weight on the tongue, which is the texture Calabrese describes. Our Navel jar comes nearest to the orange flavor the original was built around, though it is sweeter, so lean on the peel for the bitter side.
Why is my breakfast martini lumpy?
The marmalade went into the shaker with the ice. Marmalade barely dissolves once the drink is ice-cold, so it ends up in clumps on the strainer instead of in the glass. Stirring it into room-temperature gin before anything cold touches it is the whole fix. That's why step 3 comes before the ice.
A cloudy drink with fine flecks of peel is normal. The haze comes from pectin and won't strain out; the double strain in step 6 only catches the peel.
Which gin to use
A London dry gin. Difford's uses one, and so does our version on the marmalade cocktails page, alongside a marmalade margarita and a zero-proof marmalade soda. Juniper gives the drink a backbone that stands up to orange peel.
If you're planning the drink for January 1, make the syrup on the 31st and chill the glasses before bed. The lemon and grapefruit jars from the table are in the marmalade collection.
Photo by Blake Wisz on Unsplash.
