Martini Manners

It’s great fun to be a martini snob.  I, myself, have sometimes been snooty about my favorite snoot-full. Having achieved fogiedom, I now aspire to martini maturity, although I don’t claim to have arrived at this pinnacle of self-effacement. 

The steps go something like this.  First you graduate from the Tom Collins or whiskey sour to the most classic of cocktails.  Sometime later you surrender the pleasure of posturing as you put in the order.  “I’ll have a Beefeater martini, very dry, straight up with a twist.”  You come to realize the only way to impress a bartender or cocktail waitress is with a generous tip. 

You study martini lore.  There are books on the subject with rival claims as to its invention and early recipes that make you wonder why the drink didn’t sink into oblivion before it had a chance to evolve.  I am a fan of martini poetry, some of which I know by heart.  If I start reciting it during the cocktail hour, it’s time to shut me off. 

There seems to be more than one version of this little gem by Dorothy Parker.

I like to have a Martini,

Two at the very most—

After three I’m tinder the table,

After four I’m under my host.

I’m also fond of the following by Ogden Nash.

A Drink With Something in It

There is something about a Martini,

A tingle remarkably pleasant;

A yellow, a mellow Martini;

I wish I had one at present.

There is something about a Martini,

Ere the dining and dancing begin,

And to tell you the truth,

It is not the vermouth—

I think that perhaps it’s the gin.

It bothered me that the sage referred to a yellow martini because in my experience the drink is silver, but the house version at the Ritz Bar was made with Old Raj gin which is distinctly yellow.  I don’t know what they imbibed at the Algonquin Round Table, but I’ll give Nash his pretty little internal rhyme.

One of the sweetest pleasures of snobbism is scorn, of which martini drinking provides generous opportunity. One of the great controversies is whether it should be shaken or stirred.  James Bond insisted that his be shaken.  Many, including President “Jed” Bartlett of “The West Wing,” scorned the shaken martini in the belief that shaking melts too much ice and weakens the drink, thus proving that Bond was a martini wuss while Bartlett was a manly imbiber.  

A respected scientist of my acquaintance convinced me that it makes no difference whether the drink is shaken or stirred. The same amount of melting produces the same amount of cooling.  Shaking the drink produces cloudiness because tiny ice chips break off and swirl around.  This disappears as the chips melt, keeping the martini cold on its way to the drinker’s hand. 

I personally shake my martinis as it’s easier to judge the coldness, and I like to follow the example of William Powell in “The Thin Man,” who was the classiest martini maker in filmdom. Powell in his character of Nick Charles was showing a bartender the proper way to make the drink, which brings me to the new humility of which I boast. 

Annette and I were sitting before a fire at a charming inn in Connecticut, and I ordered a martini, which turned out to be one of the two worst I’ve ever been served.  I felt a haughty smugness swelling in my bosom and was tempted to instruct the young desk clerk/bartender/waiter in the martini making craft. I managed to refrain, although I left the unfinished drink on the cocktail table and politely declined his offer to carry it for me into the dining room. 

True humility is a quality of the soul and a damned difficult virtue to attain, but at least hostilities were avoided.  I suspect the problem with the cocktail at the quaint old inn was wet ice.  If you take your ice out of the freezer and store it in a handy container under the bar until a film of water forms around each piece, you will dilute the drink so it becomes mere gin and water, which was what I seemed to have.

Had I chosen to offer an impromptu lesson in the Nick Charles tradition, it would have gone as follows.  I recognize in my semi-humility that this is the drink as made to my taste and not the only way it can be mixed.  If I’m at a well known bar such as the one they used to have at the Ritz Hotel, I never give instructions because I want to sample an expert’s version. 

Judge the size of your glass.  The large martini glasses that are fashionable today will hold four ounces.  If Dorothy Parker’s host consumed four such drinks she would not have to worry about her virtue; he’d have been out cold.  Pour into your shaker enough gin to fill the glass.  Tanqueray is my favorite kind. 

I will concede that a martini may be made of vodka, but the appletinis, chocolatinis, and other assorted ’tinis on your bar’s “Martini Menu” are novelty drinks not to be considered in any discussion of the classic. 

Add the shortest possible pour of white vermouth.  Today’s larger glasses allow this method.  In former times showoffs whispered the word vermouth over the glass.  Some used an eyedropper or a vermouth-infused olive for a hint of flavor.  Others rinsed the glass in vermouth and poured it out.  If you want a particularly strong martini, keep the makings in the refrigerator and the glass in the freezer. I don’t find this necessary. 

Vermouth is an important component, but I’m not particular about the brand.  My present one is Stock.  Unless you make a lot of martinis, buy a small bottle and keep it in the refrigerator as the wine in an opened bottle will deteriorate in quality. 

With the gin and vermouth in the shaker I fill it with ice cubes directly from the freezer.  Like an Englishman dressing for dinner while alone in the jungle, I shake in the manner of William Powell regardless of whether or not anyone is watching. Civilization must be maintained.  I like the pimento stuffed olives available in bulk at Whole Foods.  Using a stuffed olive allows the drink to get inside. Naturally when I’ve finished the drink, I eat the olive.