Cocktail Talk: The Hour
Poor Martini (I’m talking the real honest-to-Betsy-straight-up-gin-vermouth Martini here. None of your “ini”-added-to-anything-even-liquid-shoe-polish drinks that aren’t, after all, a Martini, but just a drink some joker was too lazy to come up with a real neato creative name for). Yes, the most popular drink in the world, and perhaps the most popular icon in the last 100 plus some odd years (maybe Mickey? But he’s a kid’s game.) And yet, still slogged off in the most ridiculous manner (hence the “ini”-on-anything-makes-a-name disgust). Well, don’t let ‘em get you down Martini. We still love you, and to prove it, everyone reading this will have a Martini tonight (that means you and you and you, and maybe you, too), and I’ll type up this Bernard DeVoto quote, which extols your loveliness (Mr. DeVoto will have a Martini tonight as well, in that great next world bar):
You can no more keep a Martini in the refrigerator than you can keep a kiss there. The proper union of gin and vermouth is a great and sudden glory; it is one of the happiest marriages on earth, and one of the shortest-lived.
–Bernard DeVoto, The Hour
PS: I like mine this a-way, by the way: 2-1/2 ounces gin, 1/2 ounce dry vermouth, lemon twist.
phismi said:
Well, now you’re speaking my language. Though I do prefer the Gibson (I loves the onions), there’s nothing quite like a straight blast of icy hooch. Also, it lets you play at being the sophisticate.
It is my understanding that a martini is gin, and if you want vodka you have to ask for a Vodka Martini. In your esteemed opinion, do bartenders/waiters ask me if I want “vodka or gin” in my Gibson because they don’t think I know, or because they don’t know. It’s hard to act like a big-shot when you have to explain your drink.
phismi said:
Also, insert a question mark at the end of my penultimate sentence. Bad writer, I.
