Small pet peeve: "Martinis" made with with non-gin liquids.

[AlinPA]

Question of the day about a "vodka martini, shaken not stirred, mind you"
http://ask.yahoo.com/ask/20050117.html

[mike_c]

1. gin is a vile cleaning fluid that some misguided people...

...fail to dilute sufficiently with vermouth to render drinkable. Vodka martinis are an attempt to salvage a good concept.... :evilgrin:

[ThorsHammer]

11. I like it with tonic, mixes well enough for me

[da_chimperor]

19. Nothin' like some gin 'n juice to start the day.

It is vile on it's own, kinda like mayonnaise, but it's great when mixed with other things. I'm a firm believer that a well-made gin and tonic made with good gin is the king of all mixed drinks.

[kwassa]

2. Vodka martinis are not martinis

nor are any of the 8000 other concoctions at today's trendy martini bars.

Real martinis are gin and vermouth.

Of course, Europeans think a martini is vermouth on the rocks.

[AngryAmish]

3. here, here

[cheezus]

4. anything served in a martini glass is a martini

[AlinPA]

5. Martini n. a cocktail made of gin and dry vermouth, usually served

with an olive or twist of lemon peel. (Webster's New World Dictionary, College Edition)

[northzax]

7. well that's the college edition

you can't expect college kids to knowabout this type of thing.

[tjwmason]

16. I certainly knew what a martini was in college

But then the drinking age here is 18 - hurrah.

[cheezus]

9. well, if the dictionary defination is good enough for you

I'll point out that "vodka martini" is also in the merriam-webster dictionary (m-w.com)

Main Entry: vodka martini
Function: noun
: a martini made with vodka instead of gin

[AlinPA]

12. OK, but the "instead of gin" shows it to be a departure from "martini"

[da_chimperor]

25. So a martini glass full of chocolate milk would still be a martini?

:shrug:

[eyepaddle]

6. Just a wee-bit off topic

has anybody ever gone to a bar and had ANY cocktail stirred and NOT shaken? You know with a real swizzle-stick--I don't really consider a half-hearted swish with the drink straw of a whiskey coke to count as anything.....

[giant_robot]

14. Martinis, manhattans, gibsons, rob roys, etal. served "up" are

typically stirred with ice before being strained into a chilled martini glass. Any *true* connoisseur of such drinks will insist that their drink be stirred, *not* shaken. Shaking bruises the ice, resulting in a more dilute drink. Anybody trying to order a drink ala James Bond is probably somebody who is just trying too hard to be cool.

BTW, I learned the information above as a bartender (my college job), not a drunk. Not that there's anything wrong with that :).

Edit: sp.

[tjwmason]

17. That's a nasty film slur on James Bond

Apparently the books had him asking 'stirred not shaken' but some silly producer decided that didn't sound dynamic enough and so reversed it for the first film, since then it's stuck.

[giant_robot]

22. Thanks for the bit o' trivia!

My opinion of Ian Fleming just went up!

[eyepaddle]

20. Generally I'm more of a

craft beer/home brew guy--but I do enjoy a good single malt from time to time! No bartending challenge there, altough it's easy to look pompous asking for a beer or scotch list if you're not careful.

Getting back to Martinis; I had a roommate who was a bartender and he liked to drink "cloudy martinis." These were Gin and Olive brine, he drank them chilled, with no ice. Dear god, what a foul and salty concoction! Anybody else tried these?

[AlinPA]

24. Yes, they are called "dirty martinis"

[eyepaddle]

27. What'd you think of them?

And not to start another debate--do they still qualify as martinis? It's got the Gin, but in this case the Vermouth is absent.

Although I must admit that Olive brine is so potent it's alittle hard to tell what else might be in there!

[EstimatedProphet]

21. Shaking makes it colder

in addition to bruising the ice. In my opinion gin is more palatable colder.

[ulysses]

8. never did understand martinis.

Gin is vile. Pour it in a funky glass, whisper the word "vermouth" at it, and voila! It's still vile!

[TXlib]

23. I love your definition!

Pour <gin> in a funky glass, whisper the word "vermouth" at it

[DS1]

10. Hey, I like gin! It's got a taste that says

what the hell does this taste like? And why do I like it? :7

[Reverend_Smitty]

13. That is probably the best description...

about the flavor of gin I've ever heard, except I don't like it at all. Now vodka on the other hand...well thats a different story

[goodboy]

33. like foraging for pine needles?

[DS1]

34. Like, I think I must have wiped some of this across my lips in shop class

once

[kwassa]

15. The King of Cocktails

http://members.tripod.com/~MrSuave/themartini.html

In his superb book, The Martini, author Barnaby Conrad III says this:

"The Perfect Martini, as an idea, has infinite possibilities. For me, the Dry Martini remains an American symbol of elusive perfection, a kind of pagan Holy Grail. The dedicated Martini drinker views this deceptively simple cocktail as a true if fleeting, salvation, ... As in religion, one may not have actually witnessed the Conception of the Perfect Martini, but one accepts on faith that it exists, and that it takes away the sins of the earth."

[tjwmason]

18. Hear hear

I'm a good anglo-catholic boy, and as anybody who knows anything will tell you, the three precepts of anglo-catholicism are gin, lace, and back-biting.

I do also drink vodka-martinis, but only when no gin is present, and I place emphasis on the 'vodka' to distinguish it from the real thing.

[davsand]

26. If I wanted to taste evergreen I'd eat one.

Sorry, but gin just leaves me cold. Now, a GOOD vodka, on the other hand...

Best thing on this earth was the old days of Stoly (when it was the real Russian import) with a twist of lemon peel dropped in the bottle and then hidden in the freezer for a couple of days.

No need for ice to dilute it, and no need for anything like vermouth to ruin perfectly good vodka.


Laura

[mr_hat]

29. Stoly is a joke in Russia -- it's the Bud of vodka.

[davsand]

30. Back when Stoly was a real import, they sent us the "bad" stuff.

They kept the better Stoly at home. If that was our top shelf back then makes you realize how BAD our domestic Vodka used to be... Our top end domestics still are not terribly good, IMO.

I actually had some of the GOOD Russian stuff one time. I swear--it was smooth like water! It was a lot like really good tequila, in that, you didn't mix it with anything becuse you didn't need to! The idea of mixing vermouth into that just makes me shudder!


Laura

[WMliberal]

28. gack, had a bad experience with that recently

Asked for a martini, got a Vodka Martini. Unpleasant surprise. To make matters worse, it was Gordon's vodka. :puke:

[Left Is Write]

31. A Martini is gin, vermouth, and an olive or two or three.

The same drink without the olive but with an onion is a Gibson. Many purists won't call anything without gin a martini.

With that said, I hate gin and will only drink vodka martinis. I believe, despite the purists, that vodka is an acceptable subsitute for gin in a martini. Still, you have to specify vodka. If you ask for a "martini" you'll get gin.

[kwassa]

32. I beg to differ ...

Some bartenders don't seem to know the gin martini, the only true martini, for those who understand such things.

I now have to say "I would like a gin martini, with two olives, please" or I will end up with some horrifying vodka concoction, with any number of bizarre additives.

[Left Is Write]

35. Really?

Then something is lacking bartender school today. No one should get vodka in a martini unless they ask for it.

[Susang]

36. I've got a wee bit of news for you

But if you're not drinking a martini made with sweet vermouth, bitters and a maraschino cherry along with your gin, then you are not drinking a true martini either. ;-)

Cocktails, like language, evolve and change.