Turf Club
The Turf Club is one of the oldest named drinks in the martini family, appearing in the bar books of the 1880s when gin and vermouth together was still a new enough idea to need names. The turf clubs were horse-racing institutions, and the drink took their gloss. The spec is a martini wearing everything: Old Tom gin and dry vermouth in equal measure, then a barspoon of maraschino, half a teaspoon of absinthe and two dashes of orange bitters on top. That was the standard aromatic wardrobe of the decade, and the twentieth century spent seventy years taking it off one piece at a time until only the twist survived. It is usually studied alongside the Tuxedo, which uses the same five ingredients at slightly quieter measures. Tasted in sequence they are a lesson in how far a barspoon moves a drink. Anyone who knows only the dry martini meets the Turf Club the way a reader meets an unabridged edition.
Glassware: Nick & Nora Glass
Garnish: Lemon Twist
Ingredients
45ml
The period-correct gin, sweetened and softer in its botanicals than London Dry. That softness is what lets five voices sit together, and it matters more here than the sugar does.
45ml
Half the drink, at equal measure with the gin, which is how the 1880s built a martini. Fresh and fridge-cold, because at this proportion a tired bottle is half the glass.
5ml
Five millilitres, a shade louder than the Tuxedo pours it. Cherry stone and almond as jewellery rather than as a flavour anyone would name blind.
2.5ml
Half a teaspoon, stirred through rather than used as a rinse. The 1880s put anise in everything; here it is a shadow behind the wine and the juniper rather than a statement.
2 dashes
The decade's signature, and the bridge between an aromatised wine and a gin. Two dashes, and the only one of the five seasonings that survived into the modern martini.
Instructions
Add the Old Tom, dry vermouth, maraschino, absinthe and orange bitters to a mixing glass.
Fill with cubed ice and stir for 25 seconds.
Strain into a chilled Nick and Nora or a small coupe.
Express a lemon twist over the surface and drop it in.
Expert Tip
Every measure below the vermouth is small and every one of them counts. Five millilitres of maraschino and two and a half of absinthe are seasoning rather than flavouring, and the drink is calibrated to that. Double either and you have made something else: maraschino takes over at a full teaspoon and absinthe takes over at rather less. Stir the absinthe through rather than rinsing the glass with it. A rinse puts the anise on the nose and out of the drink, which is a Sazerac's technique and not this one's. Use real Old Tom rather than London Dry with sugar added. The sweetness is only part of it: Old Tom's softer botanicals are what let five voices sit together without any of them shouting.
Behind the Turf Club
Flavour Profile
Where It Comes From
The Turf Club appears in the manuals of the 1880s, which puts it among the first named variations the gin-and-vermouth family produced. Turf clubs were horse-racing institutions, socially grand and reliably well stocked, and naming a drink after one was the period's way of borrowing prestige.
The specs vary between books in the way everything from that era varies, because bartenders wrote down what they poured rather than what everybody poured. The settled modern reading keeps all five voices at roughly these proportions, which makes it a reconstruction rather than a rediscovery, and that is worth saying plainly.
The Martini Before It Was Dry
A modern dry martini is gin, a whisper of vermouth and a twist. That drink is the end of a seventy-year process of subtraction, and the Turf Club sits near the start of it.
In the 1880s a martini-type drink meant equal parts gin and vermouth, sweetened gin at that, with a small measure of a liqueur, a dash of something anise and two dashes of bitters. Every one of those elements was standard. The vermouth measure fell through the twentieth century, the maraschino disappeared, the absinthe went with Prohibition and never fully came back, and the bitters went last.
What survives here is the complete outfit, and it is a good deal more interesting than its reputation. It is also a softer drink than the ingredient list suggests.
Turf Club and Tuxedo
The two are the family's twins, separated by measures rather than ingredients. Both take Old Tom and dry vermouth and dress them with maraschino, absinthe and orange bitters. The Tuxedo, named for the New York club, trims the seasonings a shade quieter.
That is a smaller difference than most cocktail pairs offer and a genuinely instructive one. Make them in sequence and you learn what a barspoon does, which is more useful knowledge than most comparisons provide. Neither is the better drink. They are the same argument at two volumes.
The Absinthe Question
Two and a half millilitres is half a teaspoon, and it is stirred through rather than rinsed around the glass and discarded.
That distinction matters. A rinse leaves anise on the nose and very little in the liquid, which is what a Sazerac wants. Stirred in, the absinthe becomes part of the body of the drink: a herbal shadow underneath the wine rather than a scent above it.
Go heavier and it stops being a shadow. Absinthe is the loudest thing in the glass by a wide margin, and a full barspoon buries both the maraschino and the vermouth.
How to Serve It
Stirred for twenty-five seconds over cubed ice, strained into a chilled Nick and Nora or a small coupe, lemon twist expressed over the surface and dropped in.
Cold and before dinner. It rewards a drinker who already knows the dry martini, because most of what is interesting about it is what it has that the modern drink does not.
Make it at home
The Spirit
Old Tom GinA lightly sweetened gin, rounder than London Dry and older than it. The Victorian classics were written for this style, which is why some of them read drier today than their authors can have intended.
Master the Techniques
More to explore
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between a Turf Club and a Tuxedo?
How old is the Turf Club?
Do I have to use Old Tom gin?
Why are the measures so small?
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Tuxedo
The Tuxedo takes its name from Tuxedo Park, the Hudson Valley enclave whose club gave the dinner jacket its American name, and the drink is dressed accordingly: Old Tom gin and dry vermouth in the equal 1880s manner, with maraschino, absinthe and orange bitters worn as studs and cufflinks. Against its twin the Turf Club it is the quieter dresser. The same five elements, with the maraschino and the absinthe pulled back to whispers, so the martini’s wine-and-juniper conversation carries more of the evening. The absinthe is sometimes taken as a glass rinse rather than a measure, which is the drink’s one black-tie flourish. It survives as the martini family’s formalwear: the drink to pour when the occasion asks for history with its shoes shined, and the natural second chapter to read after the Turf Club’s unabridged edition. Harry Johnson printed an early reading, and the Savoy fixed the version most bars now follow.
Martinez
The Martinez is the oldest documented ancestor of the Martini and the drink from which the entire stirred gin cocktail tradition most likely descends. It appeared in Jerry Thomas's 1887 bar guide in a form recognisable today: gin, sweet vermouth, maraschino, and bitters, stirred and served cold. The Martini took the format, swapped sweet vermouth for dry, removed the maraschino, and produced something cleaner and less complex. Whether that represents progress or loss depends entirely on which drink you are holding. The Martinez is richer, more layered, and more demanding of attention than the Martini it inspired. The sweet vermouth brings body and fruit character that dry vermouth does not; the maraschino introduces a dry cherry and almond note that sits underneath the gin without announcing itself; the bitters tie everything together. The official specification builds it at equal parts on London Dry with orange bitters, and that is the recipe above: drier, sharper, and more clearly a relative of the Martini. The nineteenth-century reading uses Old Tom, a shorter vermouth measure and Angostura, and it is carried below with its own proportions.
Casino
The Casino belongs to the Aviation's family tree and arrives with a named author: Jacob A. Didier printed it in his 1909 The Reminder, Old Tom gin with maraschino, orange bitters and lemon, one of the era's great sweet-gin sours. It shares three ingredients with the Aviation and predates the violet fashion entirely: this is the branch without the sky. Old Tom is the load-bearing choice: the lightly sweetened gin style rounds the maraschino's dry cherry funk and lets the spec run without added sugar, the drink balancing on the spirit itself. Orange bitters, the period's house seasoning, bridge the lemon to the liqueur, and the whole reads brighter and drier than its sweet-gin base suggests. It survives as the connoisseur's Aviation, ordered by drinkers who want the maraschino conversation without the crème de violette's cameo, and it gives the Old Tom bottle its best showcase in the sour family.
Where this one sits
Recipe by Jerry Can Spirits