I discovered this Martini in December 2021 for a spirits tasting event I poured at Pinnacle Wine & Liquor. I say “discovered” because it wasn’t my creativity as much as a happy coincidence that we were featuring Suntory’s Roku Gin, and Pinnacle also carries Japanese Bermutto (a rice-wine based vermouth) and Japanese bitters (I have the umami bitters, so I used those). So this all just fell into place – a 100% Japanese Martini, unless you consider the mayonnaise-face who mixed it.

This Martini is an herbaceous mix of delicate flavors. Roku gin features six Japanese herbs overlaying the juniper, and the Japanese Bermutto is subtler than a typical dry vermouth, so it marries perfectly with the Roku without stifling it, and the umami of the bitters rounds out the drink.

Sensei (literally meaning “born earlier”) is used to refer to or address teachers, doctors, politicians, lawyers, and other authority figures. It shows respect to someone who has achieved distinction in an art form or other skill, such as accomplished novelists, musicians, artists and martial artists … or distillers.

All of these ingredients (except the cucumber, of course) are available from Pinnacle.

SENSEI MARTINI
2½ oz Roku gin
¼- ½ oz Japanese Bermutto
½ tsp Japanese blended whisky (Iwai 45)
5 drops Umami bitters (The Japanese Bitters)

Stir ingredients with ice, strain into chilled Martini glass, garnish with two wafer-thin cucumber slices – ideally the less seedy and more slender English cucumber.