Lychee Martini Recipe: How to Make a Lychee Martini

A lychee martini is a vodka martini cocktail flavored with lychee fruit and typically served with a single fresh lychee as a garnish. Lychee is a tropical Asian fruit native to China and Southeast Asia. Like a rambutan, it features a hard skin and fleshy interior surrounding one hard seed. It has a floral scent and flavor similar to a muscat grape. A classic martini is made with vermouth and vodka or gin and usually garnished with an olive or lemon twist. There are a few different ways to add lychee flavor to a martini, and some cocktail recipes use more than one method.

Making a martini involves mixing one part dry vermouth to four parts gin or vodka—shaken or stirred—then serving it in a chilled cocktail glass. For the lychee component, you have some options.

1. 1. Lychee liqueur: Lychee liqueur is a sweetened liquor infused with lychee, like St-Germain (elderflower liqueur) or Cointreau (orange liqueur). To make your own lychee liqueur, combine two cups of peeled, pitted fresh lychee fruits with one and a half cups of vodka. Let the mixture infuse in a food-safe jar in a cool, dark place until the vodka tastes like lychee—about one month. Then combine the infused liquor with half of a cup of simple syrup or more to taste.
2. 2. Lychee juice: Canned lychees come in sweetened lychee juice, which is an easy way to add sugar and lychee flavor to your martini.
3. 3. Lychee syrup: Make a lychee-infused simple syrup by heating one cup of sugar and one cup of water in a saucepan over high heat until the sugar dissolves. Add half of a cup of chopped fresh lychees and simmer over low heat for 10 minutes. Let the syrup steep off the heat for 20 minutes, then strain out the chopped lychees.

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