T rex biography of martini recipe
Herzog Cocktail School
I promised some time ago that there'd be a follow-up post on the history of the Martini.
T rex biography of martini recipe ingredients This variation is perfect for the drinker looking for a more spirit-forward experience. You are still missing the point. By George Kappeler is making it this way. Whether served dry with minimal vermouth or with a bit more for balance, the Vodka Martini offers a crisp, clean drink perfect for those who appreciate simplicity and elegance.I like to think of myself as someone who keeps all his promises eventually, so here it is at last. (If you're looking for a recipe guide or the Herzog Cocktail School's Official List of Martiniological Heresies, click here.)
My thanks and apologies to David Wondrich – his book Imbibe! is my primary source for what follows.
If you'd like more detail on this story, I highly recommend it. It also contains far more historical recipes than this blog post will.
The story of the Martini, and of the dozenish related cocktails we'll need to discuss along with it, begins with vermouth.
It made landfall in the United States in the middle part of the nineteenth century, and within a few decades it had been adapted to the existing American culture of cocktails.
At the time, that meant serving the vermouth iced, bittered, and lemon-peeled, and calling it a Vermouth Cocktail. This was a refreshing change of pace for people who found that % ABV Gin or Whiskey Cocktails didn't agree with them.
But the next step, crossing the one with the other, was inevitable.
The endlessly inventive barmen of the nineteenth century would devise hundreds of variations on this theme, only a few of which have survived to the present day.
Primordial Soup
"The Martini is merely a geographical expression."
- Klemens von Metternich, probably
Of that enormous menu of vermouth-and-spirit drinks, the Martini and the Manhattan are by far the most famous today.
They also seem like the natural winners of the bunch – in the same way that apple and cinnamon seem to have an innate bond, one might well say that both whiskey and sweet vermouth and gin and dry vermouth are simply complementary pairs.
Except for one thing: the Martini that we think of today - gin, dry vermouth, an olive or a lemon peel, and absolutely not one other godforsaken thing - was a later invention.
The "Dry Martini," it was originally called (I always assumed that people who ordered Martinis that way were saying they wanted the vermouth to be a rounding error, and that may be true for many of them, but it turns out they're in the right anyway, for historical reasons).
It used dry vermouth and London dry gin specifically.
That's utterly unlike the first drinks to be called "Martinis," which appeared in the s. They used sweet vermouth - the only vermouth available in the 'States at the time - and Old Tom gin, which is sweeter than London dry. It was a really sweet drink, is what I'm saying.
Some variations used Hollands or Plymouth gin, also still with sweet vermouth, before the London dry version came screaming onto the scene so loudly that we all just collectively forgot there'd ever been anything else.
T rex biography of martini recipe with vodka Makers mode. It is often seen in high-end establishments, reflecting the drinker's taste and style. The last of the three main martinis, the medium martini, is perfect and combines the flavors of both the sweet and dry martini. Prepare this like a regular martini with a lemon peel and no olive, or add olive and discard the expressed lemon peel if you want to make it as they did at the Waldorf.Wondrich dates the Dry Martini's ascent to the mids.
(Here's quick primer on gin styles, if you need one to follow all that.)
All of these drinks also called for bitters, generally orange ones. At the time, the presence of bitters was still part of the definition of “Cocktail” (and by the s, really the only part left that would be unfamiliar today).
Oh, and those first “Dry” Martinis could be as much as 50% vermouth.
The Gibson: Our Secret Patrimony
"The captive Gibson has captivated her uncivilized conqueror."
- Horace, probably
Which brings us to the roundabout history of the Gibson. Coming out of San Francisco around the turn of the twentieth century and known across the country by , it, too, was a concoction of dry gin (London or Plymouth) with dry vermouth, and likewise a 50/50 drink.
At the time, it was made without bitters, just enough to distinguish it from the Dry Martini.
It was also originally served without a garnish, the first on record being a hazelnut. Meanwhile Martinis were being garnished with citrus peels and the occasional olive, much as they are today.
T rex biography of martini recipe Vodka is a distilled drink that is made of ethanol and water. The Negroni's orange peel replaced the Americano's lemon in the same way. Course: Drinks Cuisine: American. The cocktail's distinct character revolves around its dry profile, making it an ideal choice for enthusiasts seeking a timeless drink that delivers both purity and depth of flavor.Somewhere along the way, somebody started using pickled onions, most likely as a quick visual cue that the contents of the glass were specifically a Gibson and not a Martini. The Negroni's orange peel replaced the Americano's lemon in the same way.
But as the twentieth century wore on, the bitters fell away from the main-branch Martini, too. The vestigial onion became the only difference between it and the Gibson – because the Martini had essentially become a Gibson.
The Drying of the Dry Martini
"How about 73 Dry Martinis?"
- Ernest Hemingway, apparently
The breeding-out of the bitters is just part of the story, though.
What started out as a drink had become a drink when the Savoy Cocktail Book was published in the s; it could be as much as a drink by the late forties, when David Embury was writing; and could at least satirically be a drink when taxpayer money paid for this in
At some point it was decided by the Fashionable Set that it was proper to make a Martini with just a rinse of vermouth, or just an aerosolized spray of vermouth, or – God help us – no vermouth at all, just a bottle on the shelf to nod to or a solemn look in the general direction of France.
Footnote?
Those mid-century miscreants drinking their Big Glasses 'o Gin and calling them "Martinis," appalled at the thought of fortified wine befouling the taste of juniper and alcoholism, are in my view no different from the people who order their meat burnt black. Yes, you probably have a higher tolerance for harsh flavor than the average person.
Congratulations.
T rex biography of martini recipe with alcohol A classic martini is traditionally made without a mixer, allowing the flavors of the gin or vodka and dry vermouth to stand out. The modern martini is not just a drink; it's an experience that engages all the senses, making each sip a journey of flavor and creativity. What started out as a drink had become a drink when the Savoy Cocktail Book was published in the s; it could be as much as a drink by the late forties, when David Embury was writing; and could at least satirically be a drink when taxpayer money paid for this in This contemporary twist combines vodka, coffee liqueur, freshly brewed espresso, and a touch of sugar syrup.You are still missing the point.
And this heresy begat another, paving the way for the Appletini and its unholy brood. It was the gin-drinkers who first declared that something that was certainly not a Martini could still be called one if it was served in a cocktail glass. The next generation of drinkers took notice, and when they cast off the stodgy straight gin of their parents, embarked on an admirable if depraved explosion of creativity, filling cocktail glasses with sour apple schnapps, literal coffee, or just plain ol' vodka and sour mix, and attaching at least a '-tini' to the end of each.
But I digress.
The Paths Not Taken
Remember that ur-Martini recipe, with the sweeter Tom gin and the sweet vermouth?
It survives to this day, in the guise of the Martinez.
We treat the maraschino liqueur as an full-fledged ingredient in the contemporary Martinez, but that would have been absurd at the time of its invention.
Nineteenth-century barmen used maraschino - and absinthe, and curaçao - the same way they used bitters: drops and dashes at a time. Swapping out, say, Boker's for maraschino was a much smaller change to them than it would be to us, even if they were using a full quarter of an ounce.
This means that the common narrative (for certain values of “common”) that the Martini descended from the Martinez is at best half true.
They're related, sure, and the Martinez is attested first, but they both started out as sweet gin + sweet vermouth + some kind of bitters or bitters-like-thing= drink.
In fact, according to Wondrich, the Martini and the Martinez were bouncing around at the same time as the Martine, Martineau, Martigny, Martina, Martena, and so on: all names that got applied to that same sweet+sweet+[something] cocktail at various times in various places, most likely due to a giant, continent-spanning game of Telephone.
In other words, these two are related by parallel and not by direct descent, each a grandchild of the Martin[x] cocktail concocted back in the 18somethings.