Although I have all but totally stopped drinking hard liquor on a daily basis (JD is now for extra special occassions like solar eclipses, new milleniums, and open bar mixers), I am still fascinated by the Martini. I never developed a taste for the drink of choice that Rob Petrie and Ward Cleaver had waiting for them when they came home for work.
A Martini is basically straight vodka or gin, the vermouth is kind of an afterthought, especially when you order it extra dry (no vermouth)....make sense? The olives provide a certain amount of appeal though, I think you need those to kill the taste of the vodka, or worse...gin...nasty stuff that gin!
Many of us have gravitated to a drink that it is not new, just the popularity of it is...the Cosmopolitan. There are as many Cosmo recipes as there are bartenders, most of them pretty good. Although the lushes who decided that putting chocolate in Martinis and Cosmos ought to have their AA cards revoked...what a misguided invention that is! Anyway, I found these neat Martini style glasses at Pier One the other day. I have seen them before, but this time I decided they would provide many a photo opportunity for me...I bought a green and a blue one.
Ward Cleaver never drank his Martinis out of a glass like this. Of course, I don't know of too many wives who wait at the front door with a pitcher of martinis for the husbands to come home either. I'll bet Wally & Eddie broke into the liquor cabinet on a regular basis.
By the way, FYI...a gin "Martini" with a small onion in it instead of an olive is call a
Gibson. A
Gimlet uses vodka or gin plus lime juice (and a lime) instead of vermouth. A chilled
"Gimlet" with a splash of Triple Sec mixed in is called...a
Kamikaze. The traditional
Cosmopolitan recipe calls for vodka, cointreau, cranberry juice, lime juice, and ice...strained into a...you guessed it...a Martini glass!
