This holiday season, many hosts will entertain their guests with the martini, the most American of adult beverages. The ideal martini is cold, crisp, and crackling with flavor. With a little care and some good ingredients, anyone can offer guests The Best Martini.
It has been well-documented that the martini was created somewhere in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Some say it happened in San Francisco, others in New York. Regardless of its history, making a great martini today requires technique and time as much as it does premium ingredients.
Gin or Vodka in a Martini?
Drinkers can argue all day (or, more likely, all night) about whether gin or vodka makes the best martini. No one will dispute, though, that the martini began as a gin drink. Lore has it that the gin available when the martini was invented was fairly crude, since gin doesn't require aging. It can go right from the still to the saloon. To make the rotgut gin more palatable, early bartenders mixed it with vermouth, an herbal liqueur that had a similar flavor and tended to smooth out the taste.
Today, the term "martini" usually signifies gin. If made with vodka it's a "vodka martini." Any other "-tini" drinks - chocolatini, raspberry martini, cosmopolitan, and so on - are not really martinis at all, just cocktails served in a martini glass.
Martini Ingredients
Start with a good gin. While many martini fans prefer super-premium gins because of their smoothness, a basic gin like Beefeater or Bombay will usually suffice. Much of the gin's edge will be taken off during the icing process anyway.
A decent dry vermouth, like Martini & Rossi or Noilly Prat, is fine. Only a few drops will be used.
A large, pitted olive finishes the drink. Rather than just grabbing a jar of large olives at the store, the discriminating martini maker will taste the olives first, making sure they are flavorful and do not have a woody texture. Eating the olive puts a period at the end of the drink, so it should be selected carefully. Some prefer olives stuffed with pimento or blue cheese, which is fine, but the taste of the olive itself is more important than anything it might be stuffed with.
The Martini Glass
While it is perfectly fine to drink a martini over ice, the martini is best when served in the classic "up" glass, a nice big inverted cone on a stem. The glass should be chllled in ice or even frozen, including the stem. This will ensure that the drink remains cold. An oversized 20-ounce glass holds lots of chill and makes for a great presentation. It also makes carrying the drink easier and prevents spills, as it will only be half-full or so. The thoughtful host will be very careful in selecting a martini glass, as the presentation (as any restaurateur will say) plays a big part in the "experience."
How to Mix a Martini
Chill about 3 ounces (per drink) of gin over lots of ice. The chilling container doen't really matter, but the traditional martini mixer is a glass pitcher with matching glass stir stick. Yes, that is "stirred." Shaking a martini - a la James Bond - is said to "bruise" the gin, though what this means is debated. Some say shaking makes the drink taste sharp or bitter. Others say it mixes too much air with the gin and changes its flavor and chemical composition. Regardless, it's safest to stir the gin to chill it.
How long? The trick is to stir the gin enough to get it as cold as possible, but not so long as to dilute it. Two to three minutes is probably about right. Some bartenders put a splash of dry vermouth into the gin while it is chilling. Originally, a "dry martini" meant one made with dry (as opposed to sweet) vermouth. Today, "dry" means not much vermouth, and "extra dry" means hardly any at all.
Rather than chilling the vermouth with the gin, a more stylish method is to put it right into the glass. While the gin is chilling, take the frozen glass and add about a teaspoon of dry vermouth. Swirl it around in the glass, then pour it out, This leaves just a suggestion of vermouth, but still enough to impart its earthy, herbal flavor to the drink.
Using an ice strainer, pour the gin into the glass, leaving an inch or so empty at the top if using the above-mentioned 20-ounce glass. Then just plop in the olive, and the drink - stylish, tasty, and visually appealing - is ready to serve.
Martini Variations
A splash of olive "juice" (from an jar of olives") makes a "dirty martini." Some prefer a twist of lemon to an olive. If so, hold a piece of lemon rind, outside-down, about an inch from the poured gin, and give it a twist, spraying a modicum of lemon oil into the beverage. Or drop a cocktail onion into the gin to make a "gibson."
The martini is a great American tradition, and it fits right in to the urbane New Year's Eve celebration or other holiday get-together. Just remember: it is a strong drink that should be enjoyed in moderation. And of course, when drinking any alcoholic beverage, one should refrain from driving. ("...or even putting," as Dean Martin once said.) Cheers! Happy New Year!
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