Some may disagree with me on this, but I, an avowed beer lover, feel that even though beer is almost always appropriate, New Year’s Eve calls for something a little more fancy. Either champagne or cocktails. This year, we’re cooking up a delectable culinary adventure of a meal that involves salmon, cheese puffs, green beans and so many lemons and herbs. Which makes it perfect to go along with a martini I developed over the holidays:

There’s a lot of ways you can go about making this baby. Since I happened to have on hand my basil-infused vodka and some herb syrup, I went ahead and used those in my drink. Both of those are not totally necessary if you have a bunch of sage and a muddler (which I also used 🙂 ).

Here’s what you need, per drink:

• 2 oz. decent vodka (I used basil-infused Smirnoff when I made this once, and another time I used Grey Goose Le Citron, which was amazing).
• 1 oz. lemon juice
• 1.5 oz. simple syrup or herb-infused syrup
• 3-4 sage leaves, washed and torn up
• Handful of ice
• Twist of lemon peel for garnish

Add the vodka, lemon juice, syrup and sage leaves to your shaker and muddle. If you like, you can also add a little lemon zest or peel to it as well.

Add the ice to the shaker and shake a few times (your hand will be about ready to freeze off very quickly). Strain into a martini glass and garnish with lemon peel.