How to mix your own 'luxury' martinis

GRANT COLLINS, who runs Bar Solutions, a bartending academy, and is a consultant for Belvedere (a Moet Hennessy vodka) is far from home (in Australia).

At Climax, Delhi's happening nightclub, he's mixing Belvedere-based cocktails (and particularly martinis) for the city's swingers. Earlier, he'd cribbed that Asians tend to like their cocktails "very sweet", and advised against the tendency to be generous with the sugar syrup and the mixers.

Now, he wants to know whether he can make me a cocktail. "Not a very sweet one," I say, in view of his admonition of the previous day, so he says he'll fix me something "Asian".

Magandeep Singh, sommelier-at-large and man-on-the-cocktail-circuit (literally) grins and says it means he'll add ginger or wasabi to the drink by way of an Asian flavour. In part he's right "" there's a great deal of ginger, some other ingredients (mint?) and it tastes "" alright.

Earlier, I'd had a golden martini with champagne in it, which was frankly too sweet for my palate. Finally, therefore, I asked the bartender (not Collins) to fix me a classic martini, extra dry and, no question, it was the best I had that evening.

But here's some words of advice from Collins you might appreciate "" "classic cocktails need a twist", "keep it simple and well-balanced", and er, no cheap mixers, and choose the best basic spirit (in this case Belvedere) for your cocktails.

As for the basics, Collins says, "Prepare a simple building block using 30-45 ml of base spirit, 10-15 ml of modifier/sweet syrup, and 60-80 ml of juice."

Now that you know all that, here's some handy martini recipes for you to sink your teeth (tongue?) into. Enjoy.

Cosmopolitan
Shake 1 1/2 oz "luxury" vodka (Belvedere or Chopin) vodka, 1/4 oz Grand Marnier and a splash of cranberry juice with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.

Cuban
Crush 3/4 tsp sugar, 3 fresh sprigs of mint and 3/4 oz lime juice. Add ice and 2 oz of vodka. Shake and strain into a martini glass. Top with a splash of (Moet & Chandon preferably) champagne.

Presidential martini
Shake 3 oz of vodka with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with extra large olives (my choice) or a lemon twist. (This is a dry martini, one that you'll love if you're a purist, or if you don't like your cocktails sweet.)

Golden martini
Shake 1 1/2 oz vodka, 1/8 oz Grand Marnier with ice. Strain into a chilled martini glass. Top with 2 oz of (Moet & Chandon) champagne. Garnish with a twist of orange.

Lime gimlet
Mix 3 oz of Belvedere Cytrus, 3/4 oz lime juice and 3/4 oz sugar syrup. Shake with ice in a martini shaker, strain into a martini glass. Garnish with a lime wheel.

PS: The "luxury" component comes from a vodka that is once or, at most, twice distilled. Anything more and you're in the hoi polloi segment. The recipes still work, though.