It shouldn't be surprising to heat, but like almost everything else about her, Martha Stewart's go-to cocktail when visiting Las Vegas is very thought out and specific. Stewart has been spending more time in the desert recently opening a new restaurant called The Bedford in the city's Paris Hotel & Casino, and she likes to relax with a cocktail at the restaurant's bar when visiting. Inspired by Stewart's upstate New York farmhouse, The Bedford's bar features plenty of her favorites listed right on the menu, including a "Martha-rita" with a pink sea salt rim, and Martha's Perfect Manhattan. But in an interview with The Kitchn, Stewart revealed that her personal favorite drink at the bar is the one listed on the very top of the menu: her "Martha-tini."
Stewart's variation on the martini is made with classic ingredients like vodka, dry vermouth, and a twist of lemon, but it's the details that matter. The lemon twist is big and the vermouth is Dolin, a French classic that was a favorite of another martini drinker, James Bond. Stewart also likes her martini very dry, with "just a splash" of vermouth. The splash means the drink is not as bone dry as Ernest Hemmingway's 15:1 ratio of gin to vermouth, but an extra dry 7:1 or 10:1 recipe might be in order if you're recreating the Martha-tini at home. But of all the aspects of Stewart's martini, the most specific is the liquor: Zubrówka Bison Grass vodka.
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It might seem strange to get particular about a famously flavorless vodka, even though there are some differences in the best-tasting vodkas. But that's the thing about Zubrówka: It isn't flavorless. The "bison grass" label comes from the vodka being infused with hierochloe odorata, a variety of grass native to the forests of Northeastern Poland. The drink has a history that goes back centuries, and the bison grass gives it much more prominent tasting notes than other vodkas, with notes of lavender and vanilla, along with the grassy taste. Part of the issue with dry vodka martinis is that vodka lacks the complexity of classic gin, but Stewart's choice of Zubrówka completely flips that on its head and brings the flavors that make her vodka martini with a twist truly special.
Oh, and there is one more thing. Stewart likes her Martha-tini cold. Like ice cold. In fact, she likes it served with shards of ice still floating in the drink. Chalk it up to the scorching heat of Las Vegas, but ice in your martini means the Martha-tini is shaken, not stirred. Mixed in a cocktail shaker with a few cubes of ice, the shaking will chip off shards of ice into the martini. Then as it's poured through a strainer, some small ice bits slip through. And there you have it, Stewart's cocktail all your own.