Apple Martini Cocktail Recipe

The apple martini, or appletini for short, is a drink whose origins are not shrouded in mystery. It dates back to the 1990s, and was likely invented at a West Hollywood restaurant called Lola's. This made them, for a time, one of the city's most popular watering holes, but the Los Angeles Times reports that they closed up shop in 2013 in the midst of the craft cocktail boom.

Over the years, the appletini, a cocktail that tastes like a boozy Jolly Rancher, has fallen out of favor in a day and age when the mixologist's mantra seems to be "everything's better with bitters." However you can always relive the nostalgia, and make your own at home. Recipe developer Christina Musgrave tells us that her apple martini is "an easy cocktail that comes together in a few minutes." She feels that the key ingredient is the apple juice and, channeling her Ina Garten, recommends using one of "good quality."

The base spirit of an apple martini is vodka, while much of the flavor comes from the sour apple schnapps. The drink also gets a little extra sourness from some lemon juice, although in this version, apple juice is also being used. Musgrave describes this cocktail as "slightly sweet, but with more of an apple taste." As a finishing touch, an apple slice makes for a thematically-appropriate garnish.

Fun fact: if you swap out the vodka in an appletini for rum, you have a rumpletini. You could also make the drink with gin, but there doesn't seem to be a cute nickname for this variant.

If you're using fresh lemon juice, as you should be, you'll first need to juice the lemon, and strain out any seeds. Whether you leave the pulp in or not is entirely up to you, though. Measure out the necessary amount of lemon juice, and add the vodka, apple schnapps, and apple juice into a shaker tin. Add ice cubes to the tin or glass, and shake it for about 15 seconds, or until it feels cold.

Once your appletini feels nice and cold, strain it into a glass. Musgrave is using a stemmed coupe cocktail glass here, but a classic martini glass would also be nice. You can use a wine glass too, but if you find stemware too tippy when you're tipsy, there's no cocktail law forbidding you from using a rocks glass instead.

To decorate your drink, you can use a slice or two of apple. In order to prevent the apple from turning brown, you can soak or dip the slice in lemon juice before floating it in your drink. As an alternative, Musgrave suggests that "You could use a dehydrated apple, apple candy, or lemon twist" for a garnish in place of the apple slice.