Sherry Martini
A Sherry Martini is 60ml of London Dry gin and 30ml of fino sherry with a dash of orange bitters, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe, with lemon peel expressed over the top. About 2.9 UK units. The fino takes the place of dry vermouth. Fino brings salt, almond and a dry, nutty edge where vermouth brings herbs. The gin still leads, with the sherry underneath it. The fino must be fresh. Sherry aged under flor loses its freshness days after the cork comes out, so chill it and drink the bottle quickly. Nobody is recorded as having invented the drink; it sits beside the Bamboo and the Adonis, longer-established drinks built on fino.
Glassware: Coupe Glass
Garnish: Lemon twist expressed
Ingredients
60ml
A London Dry at 40% ABV with clear juniper. The gin leads, and it needs enough backbone to stand over the salt of the fino.
30ml
Fino or manzanilla, around 15% ABV, served fridge-cold. Both lose their freshness soon after opening, so use a recently opened, chilled bottle. Sherry contains sulphites.
1 dash
One dash. It links the gin’s botanicals to the nutty sherry; without it the drink tastes thinner.
Instructions
Chill a coupe or Martini glass.
Add the gin, fino sherry and orange bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 20 to 30 seconds.
Strain into the chilled glass.
Express a wide strip of lemon peel over the surface and rest it on the rim.
Expert Tip
Start with a fresh bottle of fino, or one opened this week and kept cold. Two ingredients and a dash of bitters leave nothing to cover a tired sherry, and it shows in the first sip. Stir for 20 to 30 seconds over plenty of ice. Gin and sherry need the water to knit together, and the drink should be cold enough to frost the glass. Buy half bottles. At 30ml a drink a full bottle outlasts its freshness, and a half bottle is finished while it still tastes bright and salty.
Behind the Sherry Martini
Flavour Profile
The Background
The Sherry Martini has no founding moment and no named creator. It is one of many Martini variations that change the fortified wine and keep the format.
Sherry was in American drinks long before the Martini. The Sherry Cobbler was widely drunk in the nineteenth century, the Adonis paired fino with sweet vermouth in the 1880s, and the Bamboo, usually traced to Louis Eppinger’s bar in Yokohama, did the same with dry vermouth in the 1890s.
Why Fino
Fino is the driest style of sherry. Flor, a yeast that grows across the surface of the wine in the barrel, shields it from air as it ages, and the sherry comes out pale and bone dry, tasting of salt and almonds. That is what the drink wants from its modifier.
Manzanilla, the same kind of sherry made in the coastal town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, is often a little lighter and more briny. Both work; choose by how much salt you want.
Keeping the Sherry Fresh
An opened fino tires within days. Stopper it, store it cold and pour it at 5 to 7°C, the temperature the Consejo Regulador gives for fino and manzanilla.
The Ratio
Two to one, 60ml of gin to 30ml of fino, lets the gin lead and the sherry show. Move to equal parts for more sherry, closer to a Bamboo with gin in it. Take the fino down to 15ml for a very dry Martini with a salty edge.
Three ways to pour a Sherry Martini
Two to one (ours)
- Gin
- 60ml
- Fino
- 30ml
- Character
- Gin first, sherry clear
- UK units
- About 2.9
Equal parts
- Gin
- 45ml
- Fino
- 45ml
- Character
- Sherry forward, nuttier
- UK units
- About 2.5
Four to one
- Gin
- 60ml
- Fino
- 15ml
- Character
- Very dry, a salty edge
- UK units
- About 2.6
| Ratio | Gin | Fino | Character | UK units |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two to one (ours) | 60ml | 30ml | Gin first, sherry clear | About 2.9 |
| Equal parts | 45ml | 45ml | Sherry forward, nuttier | About 2.5 |
| Four to one | 60ml | 15ml | Very dry, a salty edge | About 2.6 |
How to Serve It
Stirred, strained into a cold coupe or Martini glass, lemon peel expressed over the top. It is an aperitif, for before a meal, and the gin measure is a full one. Serve it at once; it does not hold.
Make it at home
The Spirit
GinGin is a spirit flavoured with juniper berries. GB law requires juniper to lead the taste and sets a 37.5% ABV floor; the usual bottle is 40%. The law grades it by how the flavour gets in, from plain gin through distilled gin to London gin, and it carries the Martini, the Negroni and the Gin and Tonic.
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a Sherry Martini?
How does fino change a Martini?
How much sherry should I use?
How long does fino keep once opened?
How strong is a Sherry Martini?
Fino or manzanilla?
Who invented the Sherry Martini?
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Bamboo
A Bamboo is 45ml fino sherry and 45ml dry vermouth with two dashes of orange bitters and one of Angostura, stirred over ice for 20 to 30 seconds and strained into a chilled coupe, with lemon peel expressed over the top. It is built like a Martini with no spirit in it: two fortified wines, about 1.5 UK units, and around 13% ABV in the glass. Credit usually goes to Louis Eppinger, a German bartender at the Grand Hotel in Yokohama in the 1890s. Within about a decade the drink was in American bars and cocktail books, though some early printed recipes used sweet vermouth, which makes the drink now called the Adonis. The sherry decides it. Fino or manzanilla, served cold from a bottle opened in the last few days, gives a dry, saline drink with a nutty edge. A bottle left open for a month gives a flat one, and that is usually why a Bamboo disappoints.
Alaska
An Alaska is 50ml of London Dry gin and 25ml of yellow Chartreuse with two dashes of orange bitters, stirred over ice for 30 seconds and strained into a chilled Nick & Nora, with a lemon twist. About 3.1 UK units, all of it spirit. It was in print by 1914, when Jacques Straub’s Drinks listed it as Old Tom gin with a smaller measure of yellow Chartreuse and a dash of orange bitters, shaken. The gin-led ratio has held; the Old Tom and the shaking have not. No one has explained the name. Yellow Chartreuse is the drink. Honeyed and herbal at 43% ABV, softer and sweeter than green, it sweetens the gin and seasons it at once. A full 30-second stir is what turns two strong bottles into one smooth drink.
Sherry Cobbler
A Sherry Cobbler is 45ml amontillado and 45ml palo cortado shaken hard with a teaspoon of superfine sugar and two quarter wheels each of orange and lemon, then strained into a glass packed with crushed ice. Fresh berries and more quarter wheels of citrus go on top, with a straw. About 1.6 UK units. That is the IBA’s specification. Jerry Thomas printed a simpler one in 1862: sherry, sugar and two or three slices of orange over shaved ice. In 1888 the bartender Harry Johnson called it the most popular drink in America, and like many classics it faded after Prohibition. It is a low-strength drink built on wine, so the sherry has nowhere to hide. Amontillado gives a dry, nutty base and palo cortado adds weight. The crushed ice chills it hard and dilutes it fast, and the sugar and citrus keep it bright while it does.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits · Updated 12 October 2026