Ode To The Martini
Monday, November 27th, 2006
From Wikipedia — The gin and vermouth martini dates from the 1930s through the 1970s. Since 1980, martinis are more often based upon vodka and other ingredients.
While variations are many, a standard modern martini is a five to one ratio, made by combining approximately two and a half ounces of gin and one half ounce of dry vermouth with ice. Many Europeans, however, prefer somewhat less vermouth — about a six to one proportion of gin or vodka to vermouth. Many bartending schools insist that a beverage shaker tends to dull the taste of the vermouth, and some argue that it sharpens the taste of gin by “bruising” the liquid. However, it is relatively common to see a bartender mix a martini with a shaker due in part to the influence of super-spy James Bond, who asked for his martinis “shaken, not stirred.” This may be attributed to the fact that Bond drank “Vesper” martinis (three measures of gin, one of vodka and half of Kina Lillet, now named Lillet Blanc). The ingredients are mixed then strained and served “straight up” (without ice) in a chilled cocktail glass, and garnished with either an olive or a twist of lemon (a strip of the peel, usually squeezed or twisted to express volatile citric oils onto the surface of the drink).
While the standard martini may call for a five to one ratio of distilled spirits to vermouth, aficionados of the dry martini may reduce the proportion of vermouth drastically for a dryer martini. Connoisseurs boast of sweetening the cocktail by merely coating the glass with vermouth, passing the vermouth cork above the glass, or momentarily passing the finished drink near a closed vermouth bottle.
Although it started with olive as a garnish, olive juice can be added to a martini to make it a ‘dirty martini’. The taste of olive distracts from the taste of straight gin and vermouth, easing the stiffness of the drink.
Another common but controversial variation is the vodka martini, made with vodka instead of gin. In the 1990s, the vodka martini supplanted the traditional gin-based martini in popularity. Today, when bar and restaurant customers order “a martini,” they frequently have in mind a drink made with vodka. Martini purists decry this development: while few object to the drink itself, they strenuously object to it being called a martini. The martini, they insist, is a gin-based cocktail; this variation should be designated as such, with the name “vodka martini” (or “vodkatini”, or “kangaroo”). Further confusion may arise from confusing Martini vermouth, a brand of vermouth, with the martini cocktail.
A more recent development that further offends martini purists is the use of “martini” (or the suffix “-tini”) to refer to any flavored vodka cocktail served straight up in a cocktail glass. For example, the appletini, the chocolatini, or pineapple martini.
