Star Cocktail Recipe
Apple brandy and sweet vermouth stirred with aromatic bitters — in effect a Manhattan made with apples, dry, fruity and gently spiced.
- Category: Popular
- Glass: Martini glass
- ABV: 27%
- Difficulty: Easy
Ingredients
- Calvados60 ml (2 oz)
- Sweet red vermouth22.5 ml (0.8 oz)
- Simple syrup1 tsp
- Angostura bitters2 dash
How to Make It
- Add all ingredients to a mixing glass with ice.
- Stir until well chilled.
- Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.
- Express a lemon twist over the drink and drop it in.
Garnish
Lemon twist
What it tastes like
Fruit notes come forward and the spirit is right out front.
The technique
Stirring. All-spirit drinks are stirred — shaking whips air into them and ruins both the clarity and the texture. Thirty to forty seconds in a mixing glass, the spoon tracing the wall. You are after the same ~20% dilution, just slower and under control.
Glass and ice
The conical martini glass. Made for drinks served without ice — the stem keeps your hand off the bowl and the cone funnels the aroma upward.
Ingredient notes and substitutes
- Calvados
- Normandy's apple brandy. It is distilled from cider, not from juice, so it is dry and earthy rather than sweet — dry cider is not a substitute for it.
- Sweet red vermouth
- Once opened it lives IN THE FRIDGE and should be finished within a month; a bottle left at room temperature oxidises in a few weeks and sours the drink.
- Simple syrup
- One part sugar to one part water, stirred until it dissolves — no need to boil it. Keeps a month in the fridge. No syrup? Use the same amount of honey, loosened with a little water.
- Angostura bitters
- The salt of the cocktail world. Measured in dashes, not millilitres: a few of them cut the sweetness and add spice. One bottle lasts years.
The Story
An apple-brandy cousin of the Manhattan that already appears in American bar books of the 1890s.
Frequently asked questions
- How is a Star Cocktail mixed?
- It is stirred and served in a martini glass.
- How strong is a Star Cocktail?
- Roughly 27% ABV as served — a spirit-strength drink — sipped slowly, and it wants a glass of water beside it.
- Can a Star Cocktail be made without alcohol?
- Simply leaving the spirit out does not work — the body and the bitterness go with it. The 86 alcohol-free recipes in the catalogue are built to hit that balance from the start.
- Is a Star Cocktail hard to make?
- Easy. No bar kit required — a measure, ice and a jar will do.
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Alcoholic drink recipes are intended for those aged 18 and over. Please drink responsibly.