Deftones - ‘Koi No Yokan’ + Joe’s Koi No Yokan Martini
**Guest Pairing from Joe Day**
Ingredients: 3 ounces Crater Lake Gin (Bendistillery), 1 ounce Imbue Bittersweet Vermouth, 1-2 dashes orange bitters, lemon zest for garnish (small peel using a paring knife).
Mixing Instructions: Fill a mixing glass with ice, pour ingredients in and STIR gently for 30-45 seconds. Strain into a martini glass. Rub the rim with the inside of the lemon peel, then turn it around so that the outer peel faces the top of your drink and delicately squeeze the oils out. Finally, twist the peel, and drop it in.
Notes: The Deftones captured my imagination with their first album Adrenaline in 1995 during a period where nearly every quasi-metal 90s rock band had their 15 minutes. While the others have joined the dustbin of irrelevancy, Deftones are still at it. With their seventh studio album the Sacramento group is still pushing boundaries, still serving up their signature blend of gritty guitar tones, raw aggression coupled with Chino Moreno’s unmistakable voice. They are artists at creating beauty out of the same ingredients every other metal band uses to create chaos. Koi No Yokan is in some ways the obvious progression of Deftones unlikely career, but it’s rare to hear such refinement from this stream of metal. I think Koi No Yokan displays Deftones utter genius: the best ingredients carefully crafted.
The martini is the drink James Bond stole from the bourgeois. Convention was to stir, he chose to shake. Introducing vodka was sacrilege. Only a playboy individualist would do that to such a classic. Bond’s iconic drink is certainly enjoyable, but it’s not a martini. A proper martini is a simple mixture of gin and vermouth. It lives or dies by the quality of the ingredients and treating it delicately. So, throw away your Martini & Rossi vermouth and go find a bottle of Dolin Dry or Imbue Bittersweet. Crater Lake Gin makes a great martini, and so does Hendricks. A twist, an olive, or bitters enhance it, but the key is to maintain subtlety.