A lychee martini is a chilled vodka cocktail built on sweet, floral lychee syrup, and it takes about five minutes to shake up at home. If you’ve ever paid twenty dollars for one at a sushi bar and wondered how something this simple carries that price tag, you’re not alone — I felt the exact same way the first time I ordered one.
This lychee martini recipe skips the fussy bar tools and canned-fruit shortcuts that make most versions taste flat. Using real lychee syrup, chilled vodka, and one balancing ingredient, you get that same pale-pink, floral, spirit-forward cocktail restaurants are known for, minus the wait for a table.
What Is Lychee?
Lychee is a small, round tropical fruit native to southern China, wrapped in a rough, strawberry-red rind that peels away to reveal juicy, translucent white flesh. The flavor sits somewhere between a grape and a rose petal — sweet, floral, and faintly tart, which is exactly why it works so well in a fruity vodka cocktail.
Fresh lychee has a short domestic season, so most home bartenders and even professional bars lean on canned lychee packed in syrup instead. That syrup is not a compromise ingredient here — it’s actually the backbone of an authentic lychee martini recipe, delivering both sweetness and that signature floral aroma in one pour.
What Is Lychee Martini (Nobu-Style)?
The Nobu-style lychee martini is the version most people picture: chilled vodka, lychee juice or syrup, and an elderflower liqueur like St-Germain, shaken hard and strained into a frosted glass. It became the signature drink at Nobu restaurants and has since inspired countless bar menus and copycat lychee martini recipes across the country.
What sets the Nobu-style lychee martini apart from an old-school 1990s version is balance — a small pinch of salt or a splash of citrus keeps the drink from tasting like straight fruit syrup. The result is elegant, fragrant, and noticeably less cloying than the canned-fruit lychee martinis that were popular decades ago.
How do you make a lychee cocktail?
Making a lychee cocktail is genuinely simple: combine your base spirit, lychee syrup or juice, and any secondary liqueur in a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake hard for about fifteen seconds until the shaker turns frosty, then strain the mixture into a chilled martini or coupe glass and garnish with fruit.
Lychee Martini Recipe: Easy Nobu-Style Cocktail
The technique barely changes across variations — a lychee martini, a lychee gimlet, or a lychee mojito all follow this same shake-and-strain logic. What changes is the supporting cast of ingredients, which is why understanding what a lychee drink is actually made of matters more than memorizing one fixed recipe.
What is a lychee drink made of?
At its core, a lychee drink is made of three components: a spirit (typically vodka), lychee syrup or juice for flavor, and a modifier that adds balance, such as dry vermouth, elderflower liqueur, or fresh lime juice. Canned lychee fruit does double duty as both a syrup source and the final garnish.
Some lychee martini recipes swap in lychee liqueur for extra floral intensity, while others use fresh lychee purée blended with the canned syrup for a fuller mouthfeel. Either approach keeps the same sweet, tropical, slightly perfumed profile that makes this cocktail instantly recognizable at any bar.
What kind of liquor is a lychee martini?
A lychee martini is almost always vodka-based because vodka’s neutral flavor lets the delicate lychee syrup take center stage instead of competing with it. Popular choices include Grey Goose and Ketel One, both of which show up repeatedly across recipe developers’ favorite bottles for this exact cocktail.
Gin appears in some variations, but it’s the exception rather than the rule — most authentic lychee martini recipes stick with vodka as the base liquor. The lychee flavor and floral aroma should be the star of the glass, and a clean vodka base is what makes that possible.
How to make a batch of lychee martini?
Scaling a lychee martini for a party is straightforward: multiply every ingredient by your desired serving count and mix everything except ice in a large pitcher ahead of time. Blend one can of lychees with its syrup into a smooth purée, then stir that purée together with vodka and your chosen liqueur.
Keep the batched lychee martini mixture chilled in the refrigerator until guests arrive, then pour individual servings over fresh ice or shake single portions to order. This method comfortably makes eight or more drinks from one batch without sacrificing the cold, frosty texture a shaken martini needs.
Can you use gin instead of vodka?
Yes, you can substitute gin for vodka in a lychee martini, and it’s a legitimate variation rather than a compromise — just choose a floral or citrus-forward gin instead of a juniper-heavy London Dry style. A botanical-heavy gin will fight the lychee’s delicate perfume instead of complementing it.
When making the gin swap, most recipes drop the vermouth entirely and double the lime juice to keep the drink balanced and slightly more tart. The resulting cocktail, sometimes called a lychee gimlet, shares the same DNA as a classic lychee martini but drinks noticeably drier and sharper.
How strong are lychee martinis?
A classic lychee martini lands around 20% ABV once you account for the vodka, any modifying liqueur, and the small amount of dilution from shaking or stirring over ice. That makes it comparable in strength to many other martini-style cocktails, even though the sweet flavor can mask the alcohol.
Because lychee syrup and citrus soften the perceived boozy edge, this cocktail can feel deceptively easy to drink. It’s worth remembering that a lychee martini still contains a full serving of hard liquor, so pacing yourself matters even when the glass tastes more like dessert than a drink.
Gather the ingredients for a classic lychee martini
Before you start shaking, gather chilled vodka, lychee syrup or juice from a can of lychees, a splash of dry vermouth or elderflower liqueur, and a few whole lychees reserved for garnish. Fresh lime juice and a pinch of fine sea salt round out the balance beautifully.
Keeping every ingredient cold — vodka included — makes a real difference in the final texture of the drink. A properly chilled lychee martini should feel almost slushy-cold on the first sip, and starting with warm ingredients is the single most common reason home versions fall short.
This martini is stirred, not shaken
Traditionalists stir a lychee martini rather than shake it, because stirring chills the drink without diluting it the way vigorous shaking does. Martinis are meant to be “spirit-forward,” meaning the alcohol should stay pronounced rather than watered down by fast-melting ice fragments from an aggressive shake.
That said, most modern lychee martini recipes — including the Nobu-style version — actually call for a hard shake, since it also aerates and froths the lychee syrup for a silkier texture. Either technique is correct; the choice simply depends on whether you prioritize boozy clarity or a frothier, more textured pour.
Strain the ice out of the drink
Once your lychee martini has been shaken or stirred to a proper chill, strain it into a chilled martini or coupe glass so no ice makes it into the final pour. A fine-mesh strainer, or a double-strain through both the shaker’s built-in strainer and a handheld one, keeps the drink perfectly smooth.
Skipping this step is one of the fastest ways to water down a good lychee martini, since leftover ice chips will keep melting in the glass. A properly strained cocktail should look glassy and clear, with all the chill already locked into the liquid itself.
Garnish the cocktail with canned lychees
Skewer two or three canned lychees on a cocktail pick and rest it across the rim of the glass for the classic, Instagram-ready finish this drink is known for. The soft, jelly-like fruit soaks up leftover cocktail at the bottom of the glass, turning the garnish into a bonus treat.
For extra color and aroma, add a twist of lime peel or a few edible flower petals alongside the lychee garnish. This small finishing touch is what separates a home-poured lychee martini from the polished, restaurant-style presentation most people are trying to recreate.
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Lychee Martini Recipe
Ingredients
Equipment
Method
- Place your martini or coupe glass in the freezer to chill while you prepare the cocktail.
- Fill a cocktail shaker with ice, then add the lychee syrup, vodka, elderflower liqueur, and a pinch of fine sea salt.
- Seal the shaker and shake vigorously for 15–20 seconds, until the shaker feels ice-cold and slightly frosted on the outside.
- Remove the chilled glass from the freezer and strain the cocktail into it, leaving all the ice behind in the shaker.
- Skewer 2–3 lychees on a cocktail pick, rest it across the rim of the glass, and serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
(Estimated per serving — figures are approximate and not calculated by a registered dietitian) Calories: 190kcal | Carbohydrates: 14g | Sugar: 12g | Sodium: 15mg | Alcohol: ~20% ABV per servingDid You Make This Recipe?
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Recipe Expert & Food Blogger
Meet Sarah Hasan – the heart and soul of Kitchen Pinch.As a passionate home chef with a wealth of culinary experience, Sarah specializes in crafting easy yet flavor-packed recipes that showcase comfort food, global dishes, copycat favorites, pasta, tacos, and more. Her simple approach makes cooking approachable and fun for all levels.
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