Infinite MonkeysCocktails needn't be fussy. Objectively, there are few drinks as simple to mix as the classic martini. Combine gin, vermouth and ice, shake, strain, garnish with an olive or lemon peel, and enjoy. Easy, right?
If only. The martini, as most ardent drinkers know, has a cult following. Making the drink is a ritual in itself. Whole shelves of books have been dedicated to martini lore. (If I had to choose just one, I would recommend Martini, Straight Up, by Lowell Edmunds.) Friendships have been destroyed over the meaning of "bruised gin." And grown men have come to blows over the right proportion of gin to vermouth -- or whether there should even be vermouth in the drink at all. (Of course there should.)
I don't intend to revisit any of those controversies. The Summer of Gin is supposed to be fun, after all. But I do want to make the case for decent gin as the foundation of a great martini.
Decent gin? Isn't that obvious? Well, I guess it matters what "decent" means. Decent gin is neither cheap gin nor high-priced boutique gin. I don't believe it is possible to make, let alone enjoy, a Gilbey's or Gordon's martini. Those gins are too harsh and unforgiving. You can actually hear brain cells die. At the same time, although a super-premium gin such as Junipero or Sarticious makes for an excellent martini, expense or status are not essential for a first-rate martini. Far from it. And as much as I love a Junipero and Vya martini -- the quintessential martini, 100 percent Californian -- I simply cannot afford that luxury right now. (Donations will be gladly accepted, however.)
So at the moment, I'm drinking Tanqueray and Martini & Rossi fashioned the Bernard DeVoto way, except with a twist of lemon. It's a great drink. Regular old Tanqueray is a very good, reasonably priced gin. So is Beefeater, which was my dad's gin of preference. I used to make a fetish of Bombay Sapphire, but, truth is, Tanqueray or Beefeater is just as good.
Half the trick to making a great martini is the choice of ingredients. But the other half is simplicity itself: A martini needs to be cold. Yet even so obvious a piece of advice is controversial. Vermouth should be refrigerated, but what about gin? I would say no: Cold gin cuts down on dilution, and you want some dilution in the martini, as Gary and Mardee Regan urge. Dilution argues for ice -- lots and lots of ice.
So here is my recipe for a simple, classic martini:
Shake (or stir!), strain into a cocktail glass, garnish (or not!) with an olive, or lemon peel, or twist a lemon peel over the glass and discard. Whatever suits you. There can be no disputing matters of taste.
Other posts in the Summer of Gin series (so far):
Posted by Ben at June 9, 2008 11:11 PMI owe my appreciation for good gin and martinis mostly to Monkey Ben here, so listen to his wisdom.
Tanqueray gives my wife a headache, so we don't keep it in the house. I honestly DO prefer Bombay Sapphire to Beefeater in a martini. Costco has pretty good prices on the giant bottles of Sapphire.
The gin my wife has latched onto, since our recent trips to Ireland, is Cork Dry Gin. Alas, she won't let me anywhere near her bottles, and I can't seem to find any of my own here in Arizona, so I have yet to taste a Cork martini. Some day...
All this talk is making me thirsty. I don't have any Junipero, but I do have a stash of Vya, including a bottle in the fridge. 'Night all...
Posted by: Monkey RobbL at June 10, 2008 10:01 PMRobb's reference to Tanqueray and headaches reminds me of another better-than-decent gin I should have mentioned: Boodles. I don't drink it much anymore. It's a great gin, but it has an odd property. You drink two or three Boodles martinis, and two or three hours later you are smashed. Hammered. Destroyed. And by "you" I mean "not just me." I've seen it happen to other people, too. I don't know what it is. Boodles is not an especially high-proof gin. Maybe there is something about the juniper? If anyone knows the scoop, please pass it along.
And you're right about Bombay Sapphire, Robb. It's a great martini. I did not mean to disparage it in any way. Every so often, I pick it up on sale. But it's no longer my standard.
Posted by: Ben at June 10, 2008 10:21 PMNo. Poochucker accepts only Beefeater, and no substitutes.
Unless you are out of Beefeater. In which case, Poochucker will drink whatever ya got.
Posted by: Poochucker at June 10, 2008 11:33 PMBoodles is pretty cheap, too. I seem to remember picking it up at Trader Joe's in California for $18 a bottle.
Posted by: Monkey RobbL at June 11, 2008 10:42 AM