Martini lovers that we are, we launched a Web site devoted entirely to Martinis on Halloween night, in 1995, called Shaken Not Stirred®: A Celebration of the Martini. A brief history as we knew it, a few classic recipes, and some lounge recommendations were our sole early offerings. Thanks to thousands of Martini aficionados worldwide (and our own slightly obsessive natures) our site grew and grew. Occasionally, we’d get a note from someone looking for a book on our favorite potable, but we hadn’t found a modern volume that contained more than a half dozen recipes. (The restaurant around the corner from our Vancouver flat had sixty Martinis on its cocktail menu.)
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The Martini . . . was a drink that helped define a segment of American society . . . a more worldly, urbane sophisticate who drank in grand gin palaces fitted out with potted ferns, tile floors, brass railings, and paintings of voluptuous nudes.
—John Mariani,
America Eats Out
The perfect Martini can only be followed by another, and another and . . .
—Playboy,
September 1955
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Still, we didn’t give it much thought until an editor at HarperCollins dropped us a note assuring us that there really wasn’t a book that encompassed the variety of Martinis that got people to head back to cocktail lounges and hotel bars. He convinced us that we should write it. That was just the beginning.
We climbed a glacier outside Whistler in western Canada in search of clear, blue ice. We slept in the California olive groves at harvest. We made gin in Idaho, vodka in Sweden, and still make gin in London. We make our own vermouth, liqueurs, and bitters from the harvests of our garden in the Cotswolds. We spend hours, months, years in the social chemistry lab, pushing the limits of white spirits, and sifting through our dog-eared personal library of lore, recipes, distillers’ notes, and joke books.
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Anistatia standing outside in the garden with a Martini in the making: angelica on the left (used in gin) and wormwood in the foreground (which lends its name and bitterness to vermouth).
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Now we all know that a classic Dry Martini is made with London dry gin, as little vermouth as possible, an olive or lemon twist garnish, and nothing else. Any traditionalists reading this book have just gotten their money’s worth. However, they’re welcome to join the rest of us as we read on, and enjoy some darned fine variations created over the past hundred years that also deserve to be sipped from a stemmed cocktail glass.
It’s been fifteen years, a half million miles (no kidding), six changes of residences (over four countries and one ocean), and a few hundred master classes in eight countries since we first took you on the first leg of our spirituous journey. We’ve got some old and new toasts to raise to the people who have given us advice and direction, as well as tidbits of gossip and facts that have landed in this new edition.
A round of continuing good cheer from the first edition to Marc Nowak, Stephanie Ager Kirz, Loren “Lola” Dunsworth, the late James Kelly, Greg Connolly, Laura Baddish, and Ray Foley. Our undying gratitude has not waned toward Alison Ryley and Wayne Furman at the New York Public Library and Debbie Randorf at the New York Historical Society Library.
A bow to Laurie Inokuma, our “Essential Japanese” translator, for instructing us in the proper way to order a Martini in the Roppongi with either an olive or a twist.
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ODE
TO MY SIXTH MARTINI
Rising high above
the bar,
Your frosted stem
reveals how chilled
you are.
Clear and crisp
and dry as dust
I’ll drink you now.
I will, I must.
Oh perfect gin Martini
No one shall e’er
impeach you.
Now, if only I could stand
upright,
just long enough
to reach you.
—Jared Brown
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Hats off to Steve Visakay, Gerald Posner, Coreen Larson, Bob Tucker, Chris Madison, Steve Starr, Holger Faulhammer, Sean Hamilton, Ernesto Paez, Stefano Pasini, Jeffrey Carlisle, Charles Wharton, Jerry Langland, Clarke Trevett, Pete Miller, Sara Lennard, Jim Hall, and the rest of our Web friends who visited us back in those early days.
A new round of toasts go to our most loved friends Audrey Saunders and Robert Hess. May the bitters be with you. There’re more that deserve huge hugs: our favorite distillers Desmond Payne and Sean Harrison; the legends Peter Dorelli, Dick Bradsell, Salvatore Calabrese, Dale DeGroff, gaz regan (aka: Gary Regan), and Alessandro Palazzi; and the upcoming legends Sasha Petraske, Nick Strangeway, Hidetsugu Ueno, Ben Reed, Angus Winchester, Henry Besant, Dré Masso, Dushan Zaric, Mauro Majoub, Douglas Ankrah, Kathy Casey, Richard Hunt, Pete Jeary, Tomas Cambral, and Paul Mant.
A rousing toast to our HarperCollins team, including our former editor, Jeremie Ruby-Strauss, who found us on the Web and drove us to drink; our present editor, Michael Signorelli, for having the chutzpah to work with us; and our wonderful copyeditor Rita Madrigal.
With that done, there’s only one more thing to say: Let’s party!
Cheers!
Anistatia R. Miller & Jared M. Brown