Fino Martini

Sherry is no stranger to cocktails. Drinks like the sherry cobbler are among the oldest examples of the craft, and classics like the Adonis or my personal favorite, the Bizzy Izzy Highball, call for the Spanish fortified wine. Often in these old recipes, the style of sherry—a family with a lot of variation—that would have been used in times past is up for some debate, but the fino martini, found in Jones’ Complete Barguide from 1977, is nothing if not explicit.

This drink from Stan Jones’s epic bar bible is a simple martini with fino, the famously delicate sherry substituted in place of dry vermouth. This transforms the classic cocktail, losing the herbal and bitter qualities of vermouth in exchange for salinity, acidity, and nuttiness. Certainly, this is a drink someone had made before that heady decade, but fino seemed to be in the air those days. Bartender Pepe Ruiz is said to have created the Flame of Love at iconic Los Angeles restaurant Chasen’s in 1970. That vodka martini called for a splash of fino and a showy flamed orange peel, but it’s his local contemporary Jones’s classic gin version, with its utilitarian name and garnish, that wins my heart.

Fino sherry is a wonderful foil for gin’s juniper, bringing a bright and almondy presence to the prickly, piney plant. But one word of warning: This sherry is known to die quick once the bottle is open. Most sherry experts will tell you to drink a bottle within a day or three of opening, but my suggestion is to gather up a few friends and pop a bottle just for the occasion. It’s going to be best that day.

And while the lemon twist Jones calls for is an absolute must for me personally in this drink, one could be forgiven for taking the midcentury route and going olive—a classic pairing with the Spanish wine.