Vodka or gin
Shaken or stirred
Vermouth or dry
Gin, it doesn’t matter, and vermouth for me.
a martini made with vodka isn’t really a martini. martini’s are made with gin and vermouth. the garnish can be anything, but if you’re a man, it’s a queen olive.
vodka martini’s are for people who don’t have the stomach to drink gin.
Gin & extra-dry vermouth. Stirred
Gin, gin, gin, and vermouth. Dry like Miles Davis.
Gin
The conventional answer to question two is “stirred -blah blah blah screw james bond bruised gin blah blah blah” but I like them shaken because they’re fucking colder that way.
Three big jiggers to one small, frozen liquor into a frozen service, is how the gin to vermouth ratio should be ran, and as a technical note a “dry” martini traditionally refers to one made with drier vermouth, the amount of vermouth making it more or less dry however is just one of those lost semantic battles.
and the garnish should be a rinsed almond olive AND a twist of lemon zest, not a goddamn wedge of lemon.
The recipe I know calls for 2 1/2 Gin + 1/2 White Vermouth.
I believe the reason it is stirred and not shaken is because by shaking it you melt more ice into the drink, plus, I think you have to previously chill the glass by filling it with ice and water while you prepare the drink.
I understood that the “drier” the martini the less vermouth it had, being “bone dry martini” just a fancy expression for 3 Oz of pure gin. I also understood that the classic garnish was, either an olive OR a lemon twist.
I tend to order doubles of everything. Obviously I am an emperor penguin while you are one of those little cute ones. Some people like the ice water, but I like the gin, the vermouth, and the glass to come out of the freezer, just like I like three rinsed olives with (neutral) almond stuffing AND a twist of lemon. I am just so. My favorite bar actually serves all -tinis out of a sort of small fishbowl of icewater with the cocktail bowl sitting in it, so you get a martini that actually stays cold.
The “shaken not stirred” thing actually comes from drinks like mojitos and mint julips that have actually mint or other herbs in them - you ideally squeeze and muddle the herb without “bruising” it. It’s a mostly academic debate for a martini, although shaking it gives you a cloudier, colder martini. I don’t think the water’s a big factor. People drink martinis to get a load on anyway, so if there’s a tiny bit of water in it, they’ll probably just order two.
I used to think the same way about “less vermouth = drier” but then I went to a few places where you’ll get served a martini made with sweet vermouth if you don’t order a dry martini.
Vodka always.
And anybody heard the famous John Leguiezamo (how the fuck do you spell that?) quote about martinis?
“Martinis are like tits, one isn’t enough and three is too many.”
Vodka martinis are for girls and countries where they don’t have gin.
If I wanted to taste christmas trees I’d ride a yak to the north pole and blow Santa Claus.
If its good enough for sean connery, its good enough for me.
Besides, martinis are a pretentious fucking drink anyway. I drink my vodka either on the rocks or in a shot glass.
Unless it’s a cocktail onion and then it’s a Gibson, or a garlic olive and then it’s a Montgomery.
But -
Always gin - shows you have a sense of timelessness and nostalgia and class - if you don’t want this - don’t drink martinis
Always stirred - shaking it will over-muddle the drink, if you need it to be extra cold - don’t drink martinis
Always Vermouth - if you add Vermouth you’re sophisticated, if you drink straight gin you’re an alcoholic. If you don’t want to add vermouth - you appear to be my mean-drunk grandfather and you need to get back to the Home the nurses will be looking for you.
God I hate martini’s. I have tried, I really have…
A real martini is made with a good London dry gin, it is stirred not shaken (sorry Mr. Bond) and contains just a whiff of dry vermouth. As far as how much vermouth, fill a cup with ice, pour in a little vermouth, then dump it out. What sticks to the ice and in the glass is all you need. Then add the gin to the glass. Stir until chilled. While you are doing this you should have filled a martini glass with ice to chill it. Dump the ice from the martini glass and strain in the gin from the first glass. Garnish and serve.
Yuck still tastes like crap!
Can I have some Bourbon now?
Gin is a horrendous tasting alcohol, I love it.
if you ask for a martini, and you have any hint they don’t know what they are doing, immediately change your order. I’ve paid for some fucked up martini’s.
Examples:
too much vermouth, over garnished, SWEET VERMOUTH for fucks sake, and citrus flavored gin with an olive garnish… what the fuck man.
Maybe you hate them because you insist on not putting any vermouth in them because that’s how winston churchill or somebody said to drink them and therefore are basically drinking gin?
And IRT to marrt: There’s nothing in a martini to muddle. It’s gin and vermouth - no solids, and you don’t grind it with a muddler in the case of stirring or shaking - You don’t “muddle” a martini, so you can’t over-muddle one. There’s nothing in one to “bruise” either. And drinks made with vodka (which are not martinis) OR gin should have cold liquor and cold service, below freezing if possible. White hard liquor should ideally be below 32 degrees.
One thing I can’t handle is a “dirty” martini. I don’t know whose idea this was, but seriously, brine is not a drink ingredient, it’s something sailors drown in. If I wanted salt in my martini, I’d salt the damn ice and get it colder.
I’m really disappointed by the widespread ignorance here on the subject of martinis. Here I am in the FSM showing local bartenders how to do a real martini and back in the US people are like waah waah dry vodka waah.
I refer you to an excellent article on the subject: http://www.drinkboy.com/Essays/ThePerfectMartini.html
Any discussion about the Martini really needs to include some commentary about Vodka. I realize that there are a lot of people out there who prefer Vodka Martinis. You might be one of them. If you really look at how many people make Martini’s this really shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. Remember, the true art of the cocktail revolves around balance. Add to that the fact that many people mistakenly got the impression that not only was a “dry” Martini akin to the holy grail, but also that “dry” was referring to using less dry Vermouth then a “normal” Martini. So you have people that are now adding less and less dry Vermouth in order to make their Martini dryer then the next guys. Eventually you end up with what? Simply a glass of cold gin. For people that have truly acquired a finely tuned taste for gin, this isn’t a problem, but to the novice drinker all they taste is this obnoxious botanical flavor that they think tastes like something out of the medicine cabinet. So it is no surprise that they would find a “glass of cold vodka” (which has no taste), to be preferable to straight gin. And so I expect that the “Vodka Martini” has become so popular is because few have really had a chance to try a really well balanced Gin Martini.
And to answer your question:
What then is the recipe for a perfect Martini? I could simply tell you the proper ratio of gin and Vermouth to use, but all you would then be doing is following my lead. What I’d personally prefer is that you come to your own understanding of what you actually prefer, and not what somebody tells you is the right recipe.
If you really want to understand the Martini, and to understand the concept of a balanced cocktail, then what you should do is to spend a little time and do your own experimentations in order to arrive at what you think is your own preferred ratio. The first step is to go out and buy a bottle of good gin. Plymouth, Boodles, Tanqueray, Sapphire, or some other gin if you think you have a preference. But if your preferred gin costs less then $15, then pick one from my list. Next you need to pick up a bottle of dry Vermouth, Noily Prat is my favorite, but there are of course others. Now, you need to make three Martinis. Be sure to use plenty of ice, because you need to make sure that you get enough water incorporated into the drink. You can use a cocktail shaker if you want, but the proper way to make a crystal clear Martini is to stir it instead. You’re going to mix up all three drinks at once, so you can compare one against the other.
Drink #1: Make this one with straight Gin. Don’t add any dry Vermouth.
Drink #2: Use an 8 to 1 ratio for this one. That means 8 parts Gin to 1 part dry Vermouth. Or to put this in measurement terms, use 2 ounces of Gin and 1/4 ounce of dry Vermouth.
Drink #3: Use a 4 to 1 ratio this time. Or 2 ounces of Gin and 1/2 ounce of dry Vermouth.
As you make each drink, you might want to store the filled glass in the freezer to keep the drinks as cold as possible until you are ready for all of them at once. And notice that I don’t say anything about garnish here. Any garnish, olive or lemon twist, will change the flavor slightly, and we are mostly concerned right now with understanding the balance issues with the main ingredients, and don’t want to be sidetracked by the brine or other flavors that might be added by the garnish.
Now comes the fun part, carefully taste each drink. Take a sip from one, then the next, and then the next. Don’t try to be judgmental at the first, just try to see if you can notice a difference of any sort between them. Keep going back through the flight of cocktails; gradually try to pay attention to the balance in the flavors. You should of course notice that the first one is just total gin, with no dry Vermouth flavor at all. In the third drink you should be able to detect enough dry Vermouth to get an idea of what it’s flavor does for the cocktail overall. Does the middle drink taste like it has too much Vermouth, or too much Gin?
The important question of course, is which one did you like best? Which one tasted like it was the most balanced. Not too much Gin, not too much Vermouth. If you look at the ratios involved, you’ll see that there is quite a bit of space between them, plus the third drink definitely isn’t as far as you can take it. Just as the first drink was pure Gin, you could take it to the obvious conclusion and have a drink that was pure Vermouth. However the goal here is for you to determine what your favorite Gin to Vermouth ratio is. If you liked Drink #3 the best, maybe you’d like even more vermouth? In that case you should try another round (perhaps tomorrow night) in which you use even more Vermouth, keep adding more and more, until you feel you’ve gone too far. Or if you liked #2 the best, perhaps a little experimentation with ratios on either side of this is what you need to focus your attention on.
This is the kind of crap they should be teaching in schools today. Instead we’re letting dumb-down commercialism ruin the minds of our youth with overpriced watery martinis in restaurants and bars because most people don’t have the balls to acquire sophisticated tastes.
Gin - Vermouth - somewhere in the 5:1 to 10:1 range - shaken
Tastes good to me.
I’m not too much of a snob, but if it is fruit flavoured, then it is not really a martini. More like an overpriced cooler.