Making Your Own Cocktail Onions

Gibson with homemade cocktail onions (Photo: Susanna Bolle)

The cocktail onion is a humble thing. It may be a bar essential, but it’s one that regularly gets short shrift. Honestly, if plucked unceremoniously out of a jar, such onion can be pretty unpalatable. But a good cocktail onion can be a beautiful thing, transforming a run-of-the-mill martini into an extra-special Gibson. And the tastier the onion, the tastier the final drink will be.

The true glory of a Gibson was first revealed to me when I tasted a particularly nice rendition at Eastern Standard. Yes, the vermouth and the gin were both great, but it was the crunch of the delicately vinegary house-made cocktail onion that truly put the drink over the top. Recently, my love for the Gibson was rekindled at Backbar in Union Square, where it was served with a jewel-like pickled red onion. My drink was as pretty to behold as it was pleasurable to sip.

Inspired by that Backbar Gibson, I decided to try my hand at making cocktail onions at home when I saw a bag of pearl onions at the grocery store last week. As it turns out, this is not difficult. After all, pickling isn’t rocket science. The hardest thing is peeling the onions and, if you’re really wanting to keep things simple, you can even use frozen ones.

What you do need to do is choose your recipe wisely and be prepared to make some modifications to get the onions of your dreams. For my taste, most of the recipes out there are way too sweet. An example is this recipe from Saveur, which otherwise has a really intriguing blend of spices. If I make this version again, I’ll likely halve the sugar and reduce the amount of vermouth. I suspect this will do the trick.

Thus far, my favorite recipe is by Michael Dietsch over at Serious Eats. Dietsch shares my dislike of overly sweet onions and adds lemon and lime zest for an added citrusy note. The results are really tasty. You can even eat them on their own! That’s a good thing, because there are only so many Gibsons a girl (and those around her) can drink, even when you make your martinis half-size, as I’m inclined to do. Plus, the onions look really nice in the glass. Here is Dietsch’s original recipe for Lemon-Scented Cocktail Onions.