Shaken, Not Stirred
Recently, I had dinner at an upscale restaurant, and as I looked around the room, I noticed that the guests were drinking a mixture of wine, craft beer and that old favorite the Martini – proving once more that everything old is eventually new again. The drink that in the late 1990’s was the liquid epitome of cool (partly I believe because of Sean Connery James Bond’s shaken, not stirred line) has made a big comeback. However, as in all things cyclically fashionable, they look a little different this time around. At the core is the martini itself. Time was when the drink was almost always made by blending gin and dry vermouth (in about a four-to-one ratio) with ice, shaken or stirring the combination to mix and chill it, then straining it into the proper glass and garnishing the cocktail with an olive.
The Martini today has become the dry martini, extra dry martini, dirty martini, Gibson, Margarita, and one that I heard someone recently order, the Cajun martini using infused vodka and a Jalapeno pepper rather than an olive.
The classic dry gin martini is still the iconic cocktail and while many martinis have been created there is still only one martini, and few drinks can beat this simple recipe.
2 ounces gin or vodka, ½ ounce dry vermouth. Add ingredients to a cocktail shaker filled with ice, shake vigorously, strain into chilled cocktail glass and add olive.
