My Mum recently visited the beautiful city of Lisbon and brought me back a bottle of white port (Porto Branco).

Ferreira Branco is a type of Vinho de Porto (commonly referred to as port) made in the Douro Valley of Northern Portugal.

The port is a sweet and civilised aperitif with a soft, fruity flavour. It’s a fantastic pick-me-up after a long day (perhaps because of the sweetness as much as the alcohol).

I obviously wanted to try it out in a martini, using it in place of vermouth.

I used the same proportion of vermouth to gin as I would in a standard martini but I didn’t use a garnish as I wanted to taste it pure.

If you wanted to use a garnish I would suggest lemon to give the drink an enhancing sharpness, or alternatively you could also break tradition and use orange peel to really embolden the orange tones of the port.

The port has a stronger flavour than a typical vermouth and is quite sweet so I would recommend using it sparingly in a martini, maybe towards the ratio of a Montgomery martini, but don’t use so little that you don’t get to enjoy the delicious flavour of the vinho.

I recommend a more neutral gin, or one with dominant citrus rather than juniper. The juniper will clash a little too much with the sweet port.

Alternatively – and I do recommend this as it’s delicious – you could serve this as a vodka martini, with a much more generous measure of the vinho. This means that the dominant flavour of the drink is the wine and you really get to savour it’s complexity. At the same time, the vodka takes off a measure of the sweetness and replaces it with strength, creating a powerful, longer-lasting aperitif with a punch.

Again, I would be tempted to leave out a garnish for this variation, so you don’t overcrowd the palate. If you like olives, serve them on the side, rather than as a garnish. The drink generally goes with understated flavours as appetisers. Opt for saltiness and texture rather than zesty or other lively snack types.

If port is a fortified wine, then a vodka martini using port instead of vermouth is the fortification equivalent of the great wall of China. Perhaps we could name this variation the Cidadela martini after the old city walls of Lisbon.

Saúde!