The best cocktails are not always the most complicated ones. Usually, they are the drinks people talk about even after the glass is empty.
For world-famous Finnish mixologist Pekka Pellinen, that comes down to two things: a good story and the right vodka.
“Every cocktail needs a short elevator pitch,” he says. “Something people can connect with before the first sip.”
Take the espresso martini. The widely told origin story involves a model from London in the 1980s asking for a drink to “wake me up…” Vodka, espresso, sugar. An instant classic.
True or not, Pellinen laughs, “it does not matter. You remember it.”
That is what makes cocktail culture work right now. People want drinks with personality. Something memorable. Something worth ordering again.
But Pellinen reminds us, even the best story falls flat if the cocktail itself does not deliver.
“Good vodka is the foundation,” he says. “It lets everything else come through.”
That thinking is behind Finlandia Vodka, made with barley grown under Finland’s midnight sun and pure glacial spring water naturally filtered for exceptional smoothness. The result is a clean, smooth vodka designed to let simple ingredients and fresh flavours shine through in every cocktail.
For Pellinen, the best drinks are the ones people naturally come back to throughout the night. Easy to enjoy. Easy to remember. And even better with a good story attached. Here are two classics:
Finlandia Espresso Martini
1.5 oz Finlandia Vodka
0.5 oz simple syrup
1.5 oz espresso
Shake all ingredients with ice and strain into a chilled martini glass. Garnish with three coffee beans.
Gypsy Queen
Created at New York’s Russian Tea Room in the 1930s, the Gypsy Queen became a cult favourite thanks to its unusual mix of vodka and Benedictine, an herbal French liqueur rarely paired with vodka at the time.
2 oz Finlandia Vodka
0.5 oz Benedictine
2 dashes Angostura bitters
Stir with ice and strain into a chilled coupe glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
share:
May 19th, 2026 at 7:52 am
What’s up everyone, posting from the UK. I originally stumbled onto this site after one of those random online ads appeared while I was reading football transfer rumours late at night. Usually I scroll past them without thinking, but the comments underneath were oddly normal instead of sounding fake, so I got curious. Later that weekend I gave Bassbet Casino a try while sitting around in jogging bottoms avoiding house chores. The thing that stood out most to me was how straightforward everything felt. I didn’t need ages to figure out where things were or what was happening. My session started badly enough that I was already joking to my friend that my luck should probably be banned by law, but somehow the whole night turned around after a lucky sequence hit at exactly the right time. Even my mood improved after that.