Sakura Martini with Salted Cherry Blossoms
Celebrate Valentine’s Day, or any day, with this delicate and flavorful Sakura Martini with Salted Cherry Blossoms. This martini is as delicious as it is elegant, with the perfect combination of gin, sake, and maraschino mixed with a savory bite of salted cherry blossoms. Treat yourself and try this fabulous cocktail!
Inspiration and cocktail thoughts
I am so excited to share this cocktail with you today ahead of Valentine’s Day. This amazing Sakura Martini is the perfect cocktail for a special occasion or night in, or if you’re just feeling fancy (this is always me). It also combines some of my favorite things: maraschino cherry liqueur (yum!), sake and fancy fabulous flowers!
This recipe is inspired by and dedicated to my wonderful, handsome, and amazing boyfriend, Eli. I have been so spoiled this week with Eli testing different cocktails for us for Valentine’s Day, and this was one of them. Eli is such a mixologist and I absolutely love it. He’s so good in the kitchen and also mixes up the best drinks, and he is always experimenting with wonderful flavors. I love this of course.
He first introduced me to this cocktail after hearing seeing it mentioned on a reddit thread as a house cocktail at Bar Goto in New York, and so of course we had to test it out. We have recently been experimenting with gin, and this recipe is perfect for it. I was also excited to try the salted cherry blossoms because I’ve never had one and they are so beautiful on their own and in this martini.
The meaning of Sakura is cherry blossom, which you might recognize as a flower you’ve seen or heard of before, and is also the national flower of Japan. Sakura has beautiful meanings in Japanese culture, including renewal and optimism. Cherry blossoms have a very short but magnificent blooming period, and Sakura reminds us that life is short but wonderful and beautiful, and to enjoy it while we have it.
How handsome and adorable is Eli here modeling the Sakura martini?!
How it’s made, notes
This delicate Sakura cocktail is equal parts impressive and delicious, and a big part of that is thanks to the sake in it. There are many varieties of sake, and Eli and I are lucky to live in a place where there are readily available varieties of all kinds of sake. My personal favorite is Junmai, which is a type of sake with four main varieties made of rice and rice koji. If you’re interested in more sake varieties and details about each one, check out this website that Eli found that is very helpful and organized.
Here are a few notes for this recipe. First, you don’t have to use the Luxardo brand for the maraschino liqueur, any will do. This just happens to be my favorite and I would definitely recommend it.
For the sake, if you can find a Junmai Daiginjo-shu sake go with that. It is considered the highest grade sake, but any Junmai sake will still taste delicious.
The salted cherry blossoms can also be found on Amazon and other retailers if you do a quick search.
Happy Valentine’s Day, and Enjoy!
Sakura Martini with Salted Cherry Blossoms
Equipment
- cocktail shaker
- strainer
- two martini glasses
Ingredients
- 2 oz gin
- 1/2 oz Luxardo Maraschino Liqueur
- 5 oz Junmai Sake Daiginjo-shu if available
- salted cherry blossoms
Instructions
- Put two martini glasses in the freezer.
- Add all the gin, sake, and maraschino liqueur to a cocktail shaker. Add 6-8 ice cubes and shake for 10-15 seconds, until the outside of the shaker becomes very cold to the touch.
- Take the martini glasses out of the freezer and add two salted cherry blossoms to each glass. Strain the mix equally into each glass. Enjoy!
I don’t think that I’ll ever be able to handle this drink but I love the pictures of Eli.
haha that’s ok, you can just have a sip of mine : ) I’m glad you loved the pictures of Eli! I do too.