[ARCHIVED THREAD] - Martini (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 9/30/2009 9:51:52 PM EDT
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Went to a bar and ordered one. I was lucky I specified my favorite gin, because I got a cocktail glass of Bombay Sapphire with an olive in it.
Me: "So are you out of vermouth or something?" Her: "No, sorry, just usually no one wants it." As she grabs the bottle. Me: "So, if I walk in here, and just say martini, what exactly am I ordering?" Her: "Vodka that's been shaken." Me: 
Her: "So It gets colder. The people who do that just want to get trashed fast and cheap but don't actually like the taste of alcohol." Me:  "I guess I'm just a traditionalist."
The hell, people? |
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Meh, dry vermouth is nasty. Most places nowadays use maybe a drop of it in a martini if any at all.
IMO it's not necessary with all of the premium vodkas and gins on the market these days. Back in the prohibition days vermouth was needed to improve the flavor of all the bootlegged liquor. When I drink vodka, I want to taste the vodka, not aromatized wine. |
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Was she at least hot? Because she better be, if she thinks a martini is a "shaken" vodka. WTF does that even mean?  Make it colder? I keep the vodka in the freezer, because that's how you "make it colder"shaking 4 ounces of room temp vodka with ice will pick up about 1/2 oz of water as well. If you stir it, it will pick up a little less but that's not why some people like it stirred. Stirring technically will "bruise" the vodka or gin. I digress So this residual water melt is a part of what makes a martini a martini. |
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Most bartenders suck, and this cultural bastardization of the venerable Martini only makes things worse. If you want a good cocktail, you need to make it at home or really watch/know the bartender. For instance, I would bet 90% of the Manhattans in this country don't contain the bitters. C'mon, it's one of three fucking ingredients! Anyway, Martinis are made with gin, and it's a shame you have to specify that nowadays.
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sounds like a sophisticated crowd at that bar, i think the problem is that when people ask for a martini without vermouth, the bartenders(if you can call them that) dont say,um thats called vodka.
thats why i make up my own drinks and direct them how to make it. im a professional though so i dont recomend everyone do that 
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Quoted: Went to a bar and ordered one. I was lucky I specified my favorite gin, because I got a cocktail glass of Bombay Sapphire with an olive in it. Me: "So are you out of vermouth or something?" Her: "No, sorry, just usually no one wants it." As she grabs the bottle. Me: "So, if I walk in here, and just say martini, what exactly am I ordering?" Her: "Vodka that's been shaken." Me: Her: "So It gets colder. The people who do that just want to get trashed fast and cheap but don't actually like the taste of alcohol." Me: "I guess I'm just a traditionalist."The hell, people? So why not just do Jagerbombs or shots of Vodka with a chaser? |
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This is also the only bar in town where they can make a damn white russian. Down the street: "Sorry, the cream's expired." further down: "Sorry, we don't have any half & half, can I use Bailey's?"
Jeez. Although to be fair, the last two are clubs, and I don't drink there, I just go there when drunk to be groped by chinese girls
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I just look at the olive as an inscentive to order more. I love bar olives. They are great. 
I like gin, fuck vodka. Vodka is not for martinis, got it? That is all. i am a gigantic bond nut, but he got that one wrong. lets not forget she shook the damn thing. who wants a frothy martini? huh? tell me damn it! |
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Drink guru, Eric Felten, talks about the Martini. Link: Eric Felten writes the How's Your Drink? column for The Wall Street Journal, for which he won a 2007 James Beard Award. What is your favorite alcoholic drink? As much as I hate to pick any one drink as a favorite––after all, the defining character of "American drinks" has always been its entertaining, if bewildering, variety––my default glass is a martini. A real martini, I might add. That is, a martini as William Powell would have gulped them in the Thin Man movies. What makes a real martini? Gin, for starters. I have a horror of bartenders who are nasty-minded enough to suggest making a martini with vodka. There is almost no drink made with vodka that can't be made better with gin. And there is certainly no gin drink that benefits from the substitution of vodka. Then there is the question of desiccation. A dry martini was originally a martini made with dry vermouth, as opposed to the sweet vermouth used in the first martinis (which were, essentially gin manhattans). Over the years, dryness came to be a measure of the paucity of vermouth, rather than just the type of vermouth, and a cult developed worshipping the false god vermouth avoidance. A big glass of plain gin (or heaven forbid, plain vodka) is not a martini. It isn't even a cocktail. The martini of the modern age immediately after Prohibition was a mix of three or four parts gin to one part vermouth. My only bow to current tastes is to dry that out a bit to a ratio of 6 to 1. If you would like to demonstrate your fidelity to the historical martini, you can also add a dash of orange bitters to the mix. And what about garnish? There is no shortage of martini purists who insist that a twist of lemon peel (to be discarded after imparting a mist of lemon oil over the drink, rather than plopped in the glass) is the only proper martini garnish. Personally, I'm with the old Wall Street crowd who used to refer to Martinis as "deep-dish olive pie." One olive or three––never two. And the olives must be straight from the fridge––nothing is more detrimental to the icy bite of a martini than a room-temperature olive. One last martini imperative: The drink must be small. A three-ounce martini is the biggest you'd ever want––two-ounce is even better. That way you finish the drink while it is still cold. And remember, a tepid martini is an odious thing. The small martini is also key to re-establishing that noble American tradition, the three-martini lunch. |
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Which is precisely what I ordered, "a martini, with bombay sapphire, stirred not shaken". She did admit that when I said stirred she should have taken it as clue I wanted a real one. Stirred doesn't make a difference, it's simple physics. For a given amount of energy transfer, and definite amount of ice will melt and join the cocktail as water. Shaking just accomplishes it faster |
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Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Yeah, the botanicals are what makes gin great You know vodka sucks when the whole reason d'etre of popular luxury vodkas is to have as little taste as possible |
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So you know that all alcohol with a lower alcohol content is vodka with other shit mixed in, right? It's the other shit that makes it worth drinking. I'm not following you. So you're saying that stuff like Malibu is vodka and not rum? I think he is referring that vodka is pure ethanol cut with water. |
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Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Yeah, the botanicals are what makes gin great You know vodka sucks when the whole reason d'etre of popular luxury vodkas is to have as little taste as possible To be fair, that's what vodka is supposed to be. By law, it's odorless and flavorless. |
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Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Yeah, the botanicals are what makes gin great You know vodka sucks when the whole reason d'etre of popular luxury vodkas is to have as little taste as possible Wow. I'm not bashing gin. As a sommelier, I can appreciate at least one aspect or characteristic of any wine or spirit. I don't think there is any liquor that I would say "sucks." |
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Quoted: Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Clearly written by someone who doesn't get it. That's like saying Cognac is just boiled-down wine. Also, the choice of grains may vary between vodkas and gins, and vodka often uses potato.
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Monterey well theres your problem, your too high up the coast. i blame palosi I am stationed here. So, I've found that I can't develop a taste for scotch. I mean, It's not bad, but it's expensive, and I can barely tell the difference between any different type and quality of whiskey. |
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Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Clearly written by someone who doesn't get it. That's like saying Cognac is just boiled-down wine. Also, the choice of grains may vary between vodkas and gins, and vodka often uses potato. Ahhhh the Internet. The reason I made that statement was because it seemed quite a few people were chastising vodka as some sort of inferior swill. I was just trying to bring to light that gin is made with grain spirits. Actually more vodka on the market is made from grain (rye or wheat) than potatoes nowadays. |
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I've never had a Martini. I don't much care for Vodka or Gin or even whiskey or bourbon. I guess I'm just a Barbarian; I stick to Tequila or Rum or a good cold beer.
But I would like to try a 'traditional' Martini some day to see if I've been missing anything.... 
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I've never had a Martini. I don't much care for Vodka or Gin or even whiskey or bourbon. I guess I'm just a Barbarian; I stick to Tequila or Rum or a good cold beer. But I would like to try a 'traditional' Martini some day to see if I've been missing anything.... Dont you have to be 18 to be on here? |
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Monterey well theres your problem, your too high up the coast. i blame palosi I am stationed here. So, I've found that I can't develop a taste for scotch. I mean, It's not bad, but it's expensive, and I can barely tell the difference between any different type and quality of whiskey. don't give up on scotch. It's easy to taste the difference between scotches when you taste them back to back. Go to a scotch tasting and you'll be able to tell the difference. It sounds like you have a decent palette. |
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Quoted: Quoted: Quoted: Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Yeah, the botanicals are what makes gin great You know vodka sucks when the whole reason d'etre of popular luxury vodkas is to have as little taste as possible Wow. I'm not bashing gin. As a sommelier, I can appreciate at least one aspect or characteristic of any wine or spirit. I don't think there is any liquor that I would say "sucks." A Sommelier discounting the importance of botanicals? |
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I've never had a Martini. I don't much care for Vodka or Gin or even whiskey or bourbon. I guess I'm just a Barbarian; I stick to Tequila or Rum or a good cold beer. But I would like to try a 'traditional' Martini some day to see if I've been missing anything.... A real martini is nice and cold, that and the vermouth takes the edge off the alcohol and herbal taste, so it's pretty smooth. |
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Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Clearly written by someone who doesn't get it. That's like saying Cognac is just boiled-down wine. Also, the choice of grains may vary between vodkas and gins, and vodka often uses potato. Ahhhh the Internet. The reason I made that statement was because it seemed quite a few people were chastising vodka as some sort of inferior swill. I was just trying to bring to light that gin is made with grain spirits. Actually more vodka on the market is made from grain (rye or wheat) than potatoes nowadays. Vodka is a good base, but I won't drink it alone. I will drink (the hell out of) gin. |
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Monterey well theres your problem, your too high up the coast. i blame palosi I am stationed here. So, I've found that I can't develop a taste for scotch. I mean, It's not bad, but it's expensive, and I can barely tell the difference between any different type and quality of whiskey. don't give up on scotch. It's easy to taste the difference between scotches when you taste them back to back. Go to a scotch tasting and you'll be able to tell the difference. It sounds like you have a decent palette. I can taste the difference between Scotches, but I still dislike it. |
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Soooooo all you gin Nazis know that gin is really just vodka thats redistilled with added botanicals, right? Yeah, the botanicals are what makes gin great You know vodka sucks when the whole reason d'etre of popular luxury vodkas is to have as little taste as possible Wow. I'm not bashing gin. As a sommelier, I can appreciate at least one aspect or characteristic of any wine or spirit. I don't think there is any liquor that I would say "sucks." A Sommelier discounting the importance of botanicals?
I was never bashing gin or its components. Eta- now vermouth on the other hand....Just to reiterate what I said above. I don't think it's necessary to add vermouth to a gin martini. Why would I want to ruin my hendricks with vermouth? I equate it to eating filet with ketchup. |