THE ART OF FINE MIXOLOGY
So you already know how to make a darn good Martini. Frankly, that’s not good enough. You want to make the best Martini that ever graced the inner curve of a thoroughly chilled long-stemmed cocktail glass. You don’t just want a Perfect Martini; you want Martini perfection! No? It’s your first time, and you just want your date—who’s arriving for cocktails in ten minutes—to believe that you’ve made a Martini before? Either way, read on!
* * *
NORA CHARLES:
How many drinks have you had?
NICK CHARLES:
This will make six Martinis.
NORA CHARLES: [to the waiter] All right. Will you bring me five more Martinis, Leo? Line them right up here.
—The Thin Man (1934)
NICK CHARLES:
See, in mixing, the important thing is the rhythm. Always have rhythm in your shaking. Now a Manhattan, you shake to fox trot time; a Bronx to two-step time. But a Martini, you always shake to waltz time.
—The Thin Man (1934)
* * *
The first thing to realize is that there are very few components to a Martini. There are the ingredients: gin (or vodka), vermouth (or its replacement), ice, and garnish. Then there’s the equipment: a cocktail shaker or mixing glass and stirring spoon, long-stemmed glasses, and swizzle sticks or toothpicks. That’s it. So it’s through the proper manipulation and balance of these few items that you’re going to produce liquid satin instead of a drink that’ll leave you licking stamps just to get the taste out of your mouth. This, young Grasshopper, is Martini Zen.
EIGHT COMMANDMENTS
OF MARTINI MAKING & DRINKING
If you aspire to being a master Martini mixologist there are eight commandments to which to you must adhere as both participant and responsible host—the guardian of your guests’ health and happiness:
* * *
The one who drives
When he’s been drinking
Depends on you
To do his thinking.
—Burma Shave roadside
sign from the 1930s
* * *
Commandment No. 1: Do use the finest ingredients you can afford. Mixers like soda, tonic, or juice can hide a multitude of sins, especially when they comprise the majority of a drink. But in a Martini, that’s not the case. This cocktail depends on the quality of its few ingredients for its flavor. Since most of that is the liquor, if it’s no good, neither is the drink.
Commandment No. 2: Don’t encourage drinking games. Save group entertainment for lower-proof drinks like gin and tonics or beer. It’s like going four-wheeling in a limited-edition Range Rover. Sure, it’d be fun—but what a waste. You may not need a permit to carry one, but a Martini is not a toy.
Commandment No. 3: Don’t use aluminum mixing implements. To quote one visitor to our Web site, “Bleeeeccchh!” Aluminum degrades quickly when it comes in contact with acids (like lemon oil or juice). When it does, this metal imparts its unique essence into the mix: a liquid version of nibbling the wrapper off a Hershey’s Kiss. Likewise, copper and, some say, silver have the same effect. (Although we suspect the latter might just be the tarnish cleaning off into your drink.) Stick to glass or stainless steel implements—the strongest flavor in your drink should be the drink itself.
Commandment No. 4: Don’t perform certain physical activities. Anybody can remind you and your guests not to drink and drive. We completely agree (don’t drink and drive), but we’d like to add a few other cautionary notes. Please don’t drink Martinis and Rollerblade; snowboard; ski (either downhill, cross-country, or ski jump); handle unsheathed Samurai swords; play darts blindfolded; walk the tightrope wearing hockey skates; wrestle alligators; gnaw on electrical cords; play with lawn darts; swim; complete your federal tax return; play the French horn; walk barefoot on hot coals; monopolize the karaoke microphone; or anything else that goes against your sober common sense.
* * *
You know your Martini is too watered down when . . .
© Jared McDaniel Brown
* * *
If you find all this a bit restrictive, you’ll be glad to know that there is one activity that requires copious Martini consumption before you begin. Take a vacation in the Philippines and join the locals hunting for venomous sea snakes. Before they enter the coral reefs, divers drink up a storm to fortify themselves while they work. According to them, if you have enough alcohol in your bloodstream, it protects you from the sea snake’s deadly bite.
Commandment No. 5: Don’t have too much or too little dilution. You’ve got a brand-new shaker loaded up, you’ve got Groove Armada on the stereo, and you’re shaking like a fool. By the time you’re done shakin’ that drink to “I See You Baby,” your Martini’s life is over. On the other hand, pouring gin straight from the freezer into the glass and then forming a mental picture of a vermouth bottle is about the same as swigging directly from the bottle. Dilution is as essential to the drink as the chill.
Commandment No. 6: Don’t use gigantic glassware. Every shop sells them bigger and taller than the last place. These aren’t Martini glasses, they’re nacho bowls, birdbaths. Do you really want to drink out of something Dita Von Teese uses to perform her burlesque act? (Don’t answer that.) Two small, perfectly chilled Martinis are better than one behemoth that you’ll never see the bottom of before it rises to the temperature of the hand holding the glass. That works for brandy, and this is not brandy.
* * *
The first drink I made for a customer was a Negroni, a close cousin to the Martini. The bartender who trained me (for about twenty minutes) said, “If you don’t know the drink, smile! Say, ‘Ah, that’s a great drink but I haven’t made it in a while. Let me check the proportions.’ Then grab the Mr. Boston and look it up.” And so I did. Any other night I’d have been mortified to see the proportions were one part gin to one part vermouth to one part Campari. That night I was just glad Negroni didn’t turn out to be a brand of Italian beer.
—Jared Brown
* * *
Commandment No. 7: Don’t pour your drink into a warm glass. You keep your gin in the freezer. Your ice is rock hard and chilled far below freezing. You stir until the mixing glass leaves you with frostbitten fingertips. Then, with a flourish, you strain that honey-thick Martini into a piping hot glass fresh from the dishwasher. Here, the second law of thermodynamics steps in, and all the heat energy jumps from the glass into your drink.
Commandment No. 8: Don’t rely too much on the experts. Yes, there are people out there who have calculated the mass and volume of an average drop of orange bitters and insist on using an insulin syringe with the needle removed to administer the precise amount into the shaker (our apologies to the significant other of any Martini fanatic who hadn’t already thought of that one). Not to mention how many square millimeters of lemon twist you need.
These experts may tell you it’s the only way to make a palatable Martini and treat your best efforts like a mother admiring her baby’s first mudpie. Let them mix their own. You know when you’ve got yours right because it tastes right to you. And when you reach that point, the ultimate in suave and debonair is doing away with the props and the preaching and mixing them offhandedly without losing track of the conversation like you’ve mixed a million. And smile. You’re about to have a great Martini.
* * *
After cutting twists, wash the knife immediately. The acid in the lemon dissolves the micro-thin knife edge, dulling it in minutes. Any chef will tell you that a sharp knife is safer (less likely to slip off whatever you’re cutting) than a dull knife.
* * *
A PRIMER ON TERMS & MEASURES
Until you get used to counting or eyeballing your measurements like a pro, it doesn’t hurt to have a shot glass with indications for 1 oz. (30 ml) and 0.5 oz. (15 ml) printed or etched on the side, a teaspoon, and a tablespoon in your bar equipment inventory. There are also a few bar terms you should learn to recognize:
POURING LIKE A PRO
Did you ever see the 1988 movie Cocktail ? Yes? Did you go home and make a total mess of your kitchen like the rest of us? Okay, so those shakers were glued shut, the bottles were sealed, and who knows how many retakes they actually did to get those bottle-tossing, drink-flinging flair bartending scenes right. But the actors couldn’t fake those perfect pours. With a little practice, you can pour just as accurately.
* * *
Martini as a Silver Bullet. Ever wonder who first coined this on-target moniker? Most people credit journalist William Emerson, Jr., who wrote in Newsweek (December 29, 1975): “. . . New York is the greatest city in the world of lunch . . . This is the gregarious time. And, when that first martini hits the liver like a silver bullet, there is a sigh of contentment that can be heard in Dubuque. This is the existential moment of the day. Character is soluble. It is quickly tucked under by gin.” This passage popularized the term, but it was not the first time it appeared in print.
* * *
First, go buy a couple of those nifty tops they use on liquor bottles in bars. (Most kitchen equipment stores have them. They’re called speed pourers.) Go home, fill an empty liquor bottle with water, and stick a speed pourer on it. Grasp the bottle by the neck and turn it completely upside down over a shot glass. Count to four (or five if you prefer) in the time it takes to pour a 1.5 oz. shot. Next, try pouring to the same count into a regular glass. Empty the contents into the shot glass to see how closely you measured. Figure it should take about a hundred pours to master this skill. (That’s why you’ve got to use water.) From there you can easily enhance your repertoire by pouring a splash (a one count), a dash (cover the little opening with your thumb and pour a one count), and a drop (cover the big opening with your thumb and pour a one count).
MASTERFUL MIXING
The late, great James Kelly, head bartender at the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York—and one of the world’s best mixologists—demonstrated his Martini-making method for us. After filling a glass shaker with gin and vermouth, he then stirred the mixture rapidly for precisely twenty-one seconds. Although he never glanced at his watch, we secretly timed him as he repeated the process for each of three Martinis. Maybe our ability to read our watches slipped a little, but his timing didn’t falter by a second.
The first rule of shaking is to make sure the lid’s on tight. (Do this every time. Unlike pasta, you can’t tell if a Martini’s done by tossing it against the wall to see if it sticks.) Then hold the shaker at a slight angle and shake gently with an up-and-down motion. Vigorous shaking throws a lot more ice shards into the mix.
PROTECTING THE FLAVOR
You may have gallons of the best vodka or gin and premium vermouth, but if you haven’t touched those freezer-flavored ice trays since you moved into your house, you’ve ruined your Martini before you’ve begun. Ask yourself these pertinent questions before pouring those precious liquids over the cubes:
• Did you wash the trays before you made the ice?
• Is the ice fresh? Or is it encrusted with the frosty remnants of last year’s chili-fest?
• How’s the water? If the tap water you use to make the ice tastes funny, so will the Martini, unless you use bottled water.
• If that doesn’t seem to work, a box of baking soda in the freezer might be the cure.
• To really impress or baffle your friends, you can add all sorts of things to the ice (no plastic bugs, please). Some of our favorites are a dash of vermouth or Cointreau, flower petals, or a splash of cranberry juice cocktail.
* * *
The original Silver Bullet. Gossip writer Earl Wilson, best known for his syndicated “It Happened Last Night” column, fired the first icy shot on February 18, 1972, when he introduced America to the “Silver Bullet Recipe—Martini With Scotch.” He discovered it in Pittsburgh’s West Bar, where he’d ordered a Gibson on the rocks with a float of Pernod. The bartender was out of Pernod and offered him a Silver Bullet instead. When Earl asked the obvious question, “What’s a Silver Bullet?” the bartender replied, “A Martini with some scotch floating on top. We’ve been making them that way for years.”
When Earl introduced the drink to legendary New York imbiber Toots Shor, he said, “A Martini with scotch? I can’t wait till I tell Jackie Gleason!”
* * *
CONTROLLING THE STRENGTH
Other than the obvious (more or less booze), it’s easy to make a Martini stronger or more user friendly. Here are a few tips:
• Crushed or cracked ice melts faster than cubes, adding more water to the mix when it’s shaken.
• Room-temperature liquor instead of freezer-chilled has the same effect: It melts the ice faster.
• The longer you shake the mix, the more the ice melts.
• Using freezer-chilled vodka or gin and mixing without ice makes a stronger drink, but keep in mind that the right amount of dilution really helps the flavor.
THE QUALITY OF THE GARNISH
High-quality olives or a fresh lemon twist are the perfect finish to the perfectly produced Martini. If you want the ultimate olive garnish, you can either marinate oversize olives in vermouth, or you can hunt around for “tipsy olives” or “tipsy onions,” which are packed in vermouth rather than regular brine. There are also olives stuffed with garlic, anchovies, blue cheese, almonds, even jalapeño peppers.
There are two methods for cutting twists. Jared learned one at his first bartending job: a place that used $2.49 bottles of American “champagne” for their Mimosas. He was taught to cut the ends off the lemon, loosen the insides with a full twist of the bar spoon and push them out (easier than it sounds), and cut the resulting empty barrel in half lengthwise and then cross-wise into twist strips. Voilà, uniform twists and minimal waste.
He picked up the second method at the Rainbow Room in Manhattan while watching the service bartender set up for the lunch shift. He took only the freshest lemons, washed them gently, and pared as many large ovals of peel off the outside as he could by slicing the lemon from top to bottom, unconcerned that he wasn’t getting 100 percent of the fruit. As a result, his twists were shaped like mini potato chips, with mostly yellow peel and only the slightest bit of white underneath.
* * *
Perfect twists and other garnishes can be cut ahead of time, but not days ahead of time. The difference in appearance and taste between a fresh-cut and days-old lemon twist or wedge, especially in warmer climates, is the difference between garnish and compost.
* * *
The ideal tool for cutting twists without paring your fingertips is a vegetable peeler.
SERVING WITH STYLE
A big part of the Martini experience is the presentation: a perfectly clean, chilled Martini glass, a frosty shaker, the sound of the ice shifting inside it as the drink is poured slowly. This is what the cocktail is all about.
One final note. If you want to pre-batch Martinis before a party, you can combine the gin and vermouth—and bitters if you like them—but do not add the ice. It’s like pulling the pin on a grenade. Batch your drinks into clean glass bottles. (We use clip-top bottles like the ones that Grolsch beer uses.)
From that point on you have to count the seconds and get it back off the ice before all is lost.
* * *
If life gives you lemons,
make twists and find
someone whose life gives
them Martinis.
—Jared Brown
* * *
Now, you’re ready to embark on your own road to Martini nirvana. We can’t offer advice on which recipe to try first or last. That is a personal choice, one that each aficionado must make on his or her own. Be prepared for all sorts of advice—which reminds us of a story Bob Tucker, an entrant in our 1996 Shaken Not Stirred® Martini Story Competition, sent us:
The entire Royal Canadian Mounted Police carry a small survival kit with them at all times in a small leather, zippered case. Inside, there are miniature bottles of gin and vermouth. The kit also contains a small metal cup, a swizzle stick, and a card that instructs the Mountie: Should he/she become hopelessly lost in the wilderness, they should sit down, take out the survival kit, and begin making a Martini. Before the drink is mixed it’s guaranteed someone will appear to rescue them, saying, “No, no, that’s not the way to make a Martini!”