Martini musings

March 29, 1:51 PMChicago Drinks ExaminerCharles Cowdery

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A martini is a drink made with gin and dry vermouth, hence the term vodka martini to describe the same drink made with vodka instead of gin.

Historically, some of the earliest recipes call for sweet vermouth. Some call for both sweet and dry. Most call for a dash of bitters, an essential ingredient in 19th century cocktails.

Then came the dry martini, which evolved into a comedy routine in which a glass of straight gin becomes a martini by being in the same area code as a bottle of vermouth. For reasons known only to them, 1950s sophisticates wanted to drink straight gin but liked calling it a martini.

In the recent past, a martini became any drink served in that iconic triangular glass, which itself had mutated into a creature several times its original size. The even smaller cocktail glass, the traditional manhattan vessel, disappeared entirely.

Yet what most would consider the ‘classic’ martini recipe of three or four parts London dry gin to one part dry vermouth, stirred with ice in a cocktail pitcher, strained into a chilled, stemmed cocktail glass, and garnished with an olive or three, is itself a product of evolution.

The martini came into its own in the 1950s as the official libation of the New York City business establishment. It is a great example of both profligacy and hubris that such a seemingly simple drink could have so many variations, each of which is claimed as ‘the best’ by its proponents.

My personal take is that the martini culture of the 50s and 60s was the opening round in the drugification (my word) of drink, the culmination of which is the vodkamania of the present day. By drugification I mean that the drinking of straight, chilled vodka makes alcohol consumption as much like shooting heroin or snorting cocaine as possible, all debates about which brand of tasteless, odorless grain neutral spirit is best notwithstanding.