Leave the Martini Alone!

...or "A Meandering, Aimless Rant in Defense of My Favorite Drink"...

I can’t think of a better way to properly launch my booze blog than to discuss a subject very dear to me, the martini. It’s an austere, proper drink. It is cold, clear, and unpretentious. The martini doesn’t need fruit flavoring, creams, or fancy décor. It’s a simple creature, made of so few parts; a minimalism that flummoxes many.

Its history is a cloudy one. There is no wide-spread consensus as to its origins. Some believe it began a protozoan life as the “Martinez” of the 1860’s; a red-and-white festival of vermouth, topped with a cherry and a splash of gin. Another account places its birth in Martinez, California, where an olive placed in a miner’s drink lays its claim. The modern gin martini came very close to appearing in 1896 with a Plymouth Gin, Noilly Prat, and orange bitters combination called the “Marquete”, but the name “Martini” itself wasn’t mentioned until the 1888 “New and Improved Illustrated Bartending Manual”. It wasn’t until 1911 did the name and the drink finally meet – at New York’s Knickerbocker Hotel.

The Martini has had to endure everything that a fickle society could throw at it. It survived the turbulent birth of the original cocktail craze. It was raised on high by the Algonquin Round Table and survived through the depression of the liver; prohibition. It was toasted by FDR, enjoyed by Dean Martin, and hailed as the King of Cocktails in the 1960’s and derided as an “old man’s drink” by the 70’s. By the mid 90’s, swung back into the spotlight, along with brief the hipster fascination with swing music, and it lives on today, nearly (or over) a century after its birth. The martini is a cocktail that has certainly earned its stripes.

…and despite its honored and venerable history, the martini suffers from a lack of respect.

Today’s drinker has little to no idea what a martini really is. Even worse, the name itself is being co-opted to label a horde of sweet, cloying monstrosities. “Apple Martinis”, “Espresso Martinis”, and the dreaded (ugh) “Choco-tini” litter the drinker’s landscape with potholes of unsophisticated dreck. These soulless creatures have deigned to lay claim to a part of the martini legacy and I, for one, will not stand for it.

Does an “Apple Martini” contain any gin? No? THEN IT IS NOT A MARTINI.

Do you enjoy the subtle herbal twang of vermouth while drinking your “Espresso Martini”? No vermouth, you say? NOT A MARTINI, SAYS I.

When you sip a “Choco-tini”, do you save the olive for last? No olive? NOT A MARTINI.

There was time when innovative bartenders furrowed their brows in contemplation, and concocted some of the most memorable drinks of all time. The cosmopolitan and lemon drop are just a few popular creations strained into cocktail glasses and enjoyed by the millions…but they are not a “Cran-tini” or a “Lemon-tini”.

Lazy bartenders the world over have been getting away with this convention for far too long. Gone are the days when a combination as quirky as a salve of gin, absinthe, orange juice, and grenadine would receive an equally quirky name like “Monkey Gland”, These days, it would probably be called an “Absinthe-gin-tini” or some such nonsense. If you’re going to create a drink of chocolate liqueur and vodka, fine. Just use a synapse or two and try to be a little original when you christen your drink with a name. Don’t be lazy and “hyphen-tini” it. Your drink is not a martini. It’s not close. A proper martini is simple: gin, vermouth, and olive. Put vermouth in the shaker, make it cold, and stir, if possible. Strain into a proper cocktail glass. Place olive. No chocolate, no “pucker”…no, not even rye whiskey.

…and another thing: a cocktail glass does NOT a martini make. Of all things, the damned GLASS is the main source of all of the confusion. That long-stemmed, conical glass you’re sipping from…it’s not a “martini glass”...it is a “cocktail glass”. Manhattans use this glass, as do gibsons. Your sugary swamps are welcome to use this glass as well, but it is in no way associated with the martini. It’s a simple glass, not drinking’s equivalent of knighthood.

With that said, I invite you to call your syrupy mess an “Apple Cocktail”, “Espressoenema” or a “Chocogeddon”. Sit back and enjoy your palette-coating goop and be secure that you, yes YOU had a hand in having your drink claim its own name and its heritage.

…and get off my gin and vermouth-stained lawn, whippersnapper!