The Benjamin, a martini with garlic and pepper. Photo by Donna Turner Ruhlman.
I read about this impromptu cocktail in Molly Wizenberg’s new memoir, Delancey, about her and her husband’s opening of a restaurant in Seattle, one specializing in pizza, her Jersey-born husband’s culinary love. Wizenberg, author of A Homemade Life and the blog Orangette, is a felicitous writer, and her latest is a lovely memoir about love and food and the crazy decisions we make based on nothing reliable and the risks we take, and the really, really hard work of running a restaurant, even a casual pizzeria.
Molly and Brandon’s good friend, Ben, offered this cocktail, which appealed to my inner skinflint, with its insistence on cheap gin. Love that. Wizenberg names it grandly: The Benjamin Wayne Smith. I am adding vermouth (because it benefits from it), which Wizenberg also suggests, and because of the modification and the low-budget nature of the cocktail, I’m shortening the name to the Benjamin. I’ve never met the guy but he sounds like someone I’d like to have a cocktail with.
This will not appeal to all palates. Almost all cocktails have a sweet element to them, whether in the spirit itself (rum, bourbon) or aromatic wine or liqueur, or sugar to offset bitters or acid. Something. The Benjamin is a 100% savory cocktail; there is no sweet element to it, and this may take getting used to. It’s spicy. I love a lot of pepper (Ben prefers a couple grinds—your call). This is what I would serve with skillet-fried steak. Gin and beef go great, as Julia was among the first to note, and the Benjamin, with its heavy garlic notes, would be the ideal pairing for a seared, bloody steak. Now that I’m thinking about it, damn, I can’t not! I guess I know what’s for dinner…
Happy Friday, all!
The Benjamin
- 3 ounces inexpensive gin
- Splash of dry vermouth (optional)
- ⅛ to ½ teaspoon freshly and coarsely ground pepper
- 2 garlic cloves, gently cracked with the flat side of a knife
- Combine the gin, vermouth (if using), pepper, and 1 garlic clove in a shaker. Fill the shaker two-thirds with ice. Shake the hell out of it.
- Strain into a chilled martini glass, and garnish with the second garlic clove.
If you liked this post on the Benjamin, check out these other links:
- My past cocktail posts on the Applejack Smash, Martini, and Metropolitan.
- Make your own roasted garlic–infused vodka.
- Learn more about the various savory cocktails that are being made.
- Check out the Evans & Peel Detective Agency, independent cocktail bar and restaurant in West London.
© 2014 Michael Ruhlman. Photo © 2014 Donna Turner Ruhlman. All rights reserved.
Wow I would have bet anything today's FCH would have been a mojito in honor of national mojito day! But this cocktail looks delicious none the less.
I made this after I read Delancey, and since I'm a gin drinker who likes pepper and garlic, it worked for me.
Agreed. Meeting Ben sounds like a good idea.
You had me at Barton's!
Poor mans B&B.
Instead of brandy and Benedictine it's Barton's and Benjamin
Garlic stuffed olive, with a couple of home cured olives.
He'll, I've been drinking these and calling them martini's, didn't even know it.
Except for the pepper, which I shall try.... Goddamit!!
Just finished one - had to make it as soon as I got home. I only had Bombay Sapphire around and forgot to use the vermouth but didn't miss it. Terrific! Will be a go-to summer cocktail for sure. Loved it! Also congrats on winning the LeBron lottery.
As a person who eats no sugar or fruit I'm often in cocktail despair. This looks like just the thing for me, except that I only have expensive gin. What brand of cheap gin is good?
Trying not to swear, but these are so fu#*%ing good I could kiss you!
Goddamit!!
What an incredible coincidence! I have a steak to grill tonight, a new bottle of gin I'm dying to open - Finger Lakes McKenzie Distiller's Reserve! - and a desire to get some garlic into the act.
Too much pepper: owow hothothot!
Ooh, Mommy!
I may need one right about now.