We recently started a new “tradition” in our house – the pre-Shabbat cocktail. Now, I’ll admit I’m not sure if this is a good or bad or even “kosher” habit to start but after a long, stressful week, it’s fun to mix-up a nice cocktail and make a La Heim to kick-off Shabbat. A few weeks ago, we tried the Shabbat Pina Colada thanks to a yummy recipe from The Kosher Eye. But one of our most favorite drinks is the Lemon Drop Martini, which was introduced to us by a friend in our community whose name I’ll leave out of this post to protect the innocent.

When we started mixing up these delicious martinis, we unfortunately did not have a good set of martini glasses. Our recent trip to San Antonio solved that problem thanks to a lovely store called Marti’s – Discover Mexico’s Treasures in San Antonio. This store has the most beautiful things from clothing to fine china to decorative items. We just happened to walk past it on our way back to the hotel from the El Mercado, where we had passed on similar martini glasses because of their $12.95 each price tag.

We decided to take a chance and check the prices at Marti’s and to our amazement, these funky, handblown glasses were only $7.95 each. The most difficult part was that Marti’s has shelves and shelves of glasses to choose from. It was really hard to decided which ones we wanted. We finally selected blue and green glasses with small pieces of colored, confetti-like glass on the outside. After making our purchase, we happily headed back to the hotel with visions of Lemon Drops in our heads … OK, I might be going a bit overboard with that statement, but we were definitely excited about our new glasses.

This past Shabbat, I put 2 of the new glasses in the freezer to chill while I mixed up the following Lemon Drop Martini recipe from What’s Cooking America with a few of my own tweaks:

Lemon Drop Martini Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 ounces vodka (use a good-quality vodka)
• 1/2 ounce orange liqueur (Triple Sec is Kosher)
• 1 teaspoon superfine sugar (I’ve just been using regular sugar and it seems to work fine)
• 3/4 ounce freshly-squeezed lemon juice
• Fresh Mint Leaves (This is my addition. I add a couple of fresh mint leaves to the shaker to give the Martini a hint of mint flavor. Mint is yummy and easy to grow)
• Ice cubes (I fill the martini shaker up half way with ice)
• Superfine sugar for edges of glass
• Twisted peel of lemon

Preparation:

Mix the vodka, orange liqueur, sugar, and lemon juice and Mint Leaves in a cocktail shaker half-filled with ice; shake well.

Pour strained liquor into sugar-rimmed martini glass and garnish with a twisted peel of lemon. To create a sugar-rimmed glass, take a lemon wedge and rub the drinking surface of the glass so it is barely moist. Dip the edge of the glass into the superfine sugar. I pour a bit of sugar into a small paper plate and then slowly spin the glass edges in the sugar. It works great to quickly make a sugar rimmed glass.

Makes 1 serving … which we usually end up doubling … a few times over.

Happy Kosher Treif Cooking … and La Heim!