Martini

by Frank Moorhouse

  ‘I will get to the letter now. I’d met her with her mother in London a few months ago – just after the book came out – when the daughter, Joanna, was about to go to Laos, and she then sent me this letter after going to Vientiane.’ I took out the letter and put on my glasses:

  ‘“Dear Frank,

  Since the November martini at The Mirabelle with yourself and Mum and having read your book, I have ordered a fair few disorientating varied but nevertheless captivating martinis. As you recall I was on my way to Vientiane. I simply wish to report that Vientiane is not a martini city, lacking a contemplative culture.

  Joanna”’

  ‘Fine young woman,’ he said. ‘This Joanna.’

  ‘Fine mother,’ I said. ‘We dined often at The Mirabelle. In the good old days. But one of the really stunning facts of this story is, remember, that I actually met Joanna first as a two-month-old or whatever and when she was drinking milk from her mother’s breast, and then I’d met her again twenty something years later and there she was drinking a martini.’ I wiped a tear from my eye.

  To rescue me from my sentimentality, Voltz asked, academically, ‘Do you remember what her mother was drinking at the lunch twenty something years ago?’

  I thought, Be damned if it wasn’t a martini. I would wager it was. My God! ‘It would surely have been a martini,’ I said.

  ‘Back then, the baby was probably getting her first taste of a martini. In a roundabout sort of way,’ Jo-Lene said.

  ‘Precisely. A nicely roundabout sort of way.’

  The three of us sat there (Jo-Lene in a waitress’s crouch) sharing what was probably a moment of wonder. Even Voltz showed wonder under his New York savoir faire.

  This seemed a good note to leave for dinner. Jo-Lene silently left and as we rose to go, Voltz turned to me and muttered what I later found out to be some lines from Tom Lehrer:

  ‘Oh, soon we’ll be out amid the cold world’s strife.

  Soon we’ll be sliding down the razor blade of life.

  But as we go our sordid separate ways,

  We shall ne’er forget thee, thou golden college days.

  Hearts full of youth,

  Hearts full of truth,

  Six parts gin to one part vermouth.’

  I could tell that the book had, by and large, won his acceptance.

  The Classic Martini (with Variations)

  FIRST VARIATION

  6 parts London gin

  1 part dry vermouth

  Place ingredients in a chilled cocktail shaker filled with ice.

  Cover and shake to the rhythm of a waltz.

  When contents are icy cold, strain and pour to the brim of a chilled martini glass.

  Garnish with a green olive on the end of a wooden toothpick.

  The olive may be unpitted or stuffed with pimento. Up to three olives may be used.

  The toothpick should be rounded and wooden, sharpened at one end, with a small groove near the blunt end.

  The olive and toothpick may be replaced by a twist of lemon rind, which may be sculpted into a bow, a spiral or a snake.

  SECOND VARIATION

  Place vermouth into a chilled cocktail shaker filled with ice.

  Cover and shake, then discard excess vermouth, leaving only the vermouth-coated ice cubes.

  Add gin, cover and shake to the rhythm of a waltz.

  Proceed according to the First Variation.

  Acceptable Variations and Close Relatives of the Martini

  THE VODKA OR KANGAROO

  Made according to the two classic martini variations, with vodka replacing the gin. Because there are usually no herbs, spices or other botanicals in vodka, the martini made with it is less complex. I have heard the vodka martini described as a ‘kangaroo’ in New York.

  THE JACK LONDON

  ‘50:50 gin and dry vermouth were thought to be the proportions of the martini when it started, probably in Europe, or in any place where London gin and Italian or French vermouth were available and the drinkers adventurous.’

  THE GIN TURIN

  Gin, dry and sweet vermouth 50:25:25. A Genevan forerunner of the martini, drunk by the bon viveurs of the 1920s.

  THE VODKA TURIN

  Vodka, dry and sweet vermouth 50:25:25. As drunk by Mary McGeachy.

  THE VOLTZ PEDANTIC

  A classic in which the gin and vermouth are individually shaken in ice and separate cocktail shakers then combined and mixed in a third shaker.

  THE GINGER ROOM LIME–LEMON GARNISH

  At the Ginger Room, the best restaurant in Canberra, the maître d, Frederic Rivard, made me a martini in 2006 and it arrived garnished with a small knob of lemon peel wrapped in lime peel – about the size of one of the smaller fingernails – skewed on a toothpick. I told him I had never seen it before. He said he had never done it before. And very pretty it was too.

  THE LOUIS BUNUEL

  ‘The day before your guests arrive, put all the ingredients – glasses, gin, and shaker – in the refrigerator. Use a thermometer to make sure the ice is about twenty degrees below zero (centigrade). Don’t take anything out until your friends arrive; then pour a few drops of Noilly Prat and half a demitasse spoon of Angostura bitters over the ice in the shaker. Shake it, then pour the liquid out, leaving only the ice, which retains a faint taste of both. Then pour straight gin over the ice in the shaker, shake it again, and serve.’

  THE MALCOLM FRASER

  ‘Malcolm Fraser is said to take a swig of gin from the bottle, swallow it, and then pour in some vermouth to replace the gin. He shakes the bottle and then places it in the freezer for martinis when required.’

  THE ALGONQUIN TRADITIONAL

  The classic in proportions of 3 parts gin 1 part vermouth, with a spot of orange bitters all mixed and served very cold in cobalt-blue martini glasses. Also known as the Dorothy Parker.

  THE ALGONQUIN DIAMOND

  The hotel offers a $10,000 martini, complete with a loose diamond at the bottom.

  IN AND OUT ON TOAST

  In 1961, Hoy Wong, bartender at the Algonquin, New York, now ninety years old, served the Duke of Windsor. The duke said he wanted a House of Lords martini In and Out on toast. Wong knew he wanted a martini with a lemon twist ignited with a match. ‘After he drink, he liked it,’ he said. ‘And he had a second one.’ (Associated Press)

  THE BON

  The Sydney Writers’ Week official cocktail, 2005 – the Algonquin Traditional without the orange bitters. Called the BON martini by Jessie Dettmann of Random House to indicate that this book would be Out in November.

  THE OGDEN NASH YELLOW MELLOW

  ‘Voltz and I discovered that the yellow mellow martini is reached by adding .12 vermouths to every one part of gin.’

  THE CONTEMPORARY

  ‘Today most bars, unless instructed otherwise, serve a severely dry martini from which the vermouth is all but excluded. Most bartenders will swirl vermouth in the glass, throw it away and then serve chilled gin or vodka with an olive or two or three or a twist, often sculpted, sometimes into a bow, a spiral, a snake.’

  Another name for the second variation of the classic.

  THE MONTGOMERY

  ‘Hemingway mentions what he calls the Montgomery martini in his novel Across the River and into the Trees. A Montgomery is gin and vermouth in proportions of 15:1 – the name is a reference to the English World War II Field Marshal General Montgomery who, legend has it, would not attack without overwhelming superiority.’

  THE CAPOTE

  Truman Capote and Donald Windham in Harry’s Bar in Venice in 1948 drank what they called a martini made of 1 part gin, 1 part vermouth and 1 part cognac.

  THE QUEEN MOTHER

  ‘Eleven to one, please.’ The Queen Mother was known to love the martini.

  THE WET MARTINI

  Heavy on the vermouth. ‘The other day I ordered a martini the way I sometimes like it: 5 parts gin to 1 part vermouth (which would be the way the New Yorker crowd would have drunk it
in the 1930s), and the young woman bartender queried this and said, “You want a wet martini, not a dry martini?” I hadn’t heard this expression and I asked her about it. She said she’d picked it up in London.’

  THE DIRTY MARTINI

  Preferred quantites of gin and dry vermouth.

  Olive brine – flick, splash or dash (see page 93)

  Place ingredients in a chilled cocktail shaker filled with ice.

  Cover and shake to the rhythm of a waltz.

  When contents are icy cold, strain and pour to the brim of a chilled martini glass.

  Garnish with green olive(s) on the end of a wooden toothpick.

  ‘“Often when olives are added to martinis, a little brine from the olive jar gets into the drink from the olives, sometimes more than at other times. Someone, somewhere decided to call it a dirty martini and to intentionally put a little more brine than would normally come off the olives.”’

  THE ROOSEVELT

  The favourite martini of the former president of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. Two parts gin, one part vermouth, a splash of olive brine and possibly a dot or two of orange bitters.

  GIN & IT

  2:1 gin and sweet vermouth. ‘IT’ is short for Italian, that is, Italian sweet vermouth.

  THE ABSINTHE

  ‘… the manservant brought in a tray with an array of bottles, and Isabel, always tactful, knowing that nine men out of ten are convinced they can mix a better cocktail than any woman, asked me to shake a couple. I poured out the gin and the Noilly Prat and added the dash of absinthe that transforms a dry Martini from a nondescript drink to one for the gods of Olympus …’

  W. Somerset Maugham, The Razor’s Edge, 1944

  A classic gin martini with a dash of absinthe added to the glass before pouring the martini.

  THE STUART

  ‘In 1896, the New York barman Thomas Stuart published Stuart’s Fancy Drinks and How to Make Them, which has a recipe for what he called the Marquerite but which resembles what we know as a martini: 2 parts Plymouth gin, 1 part French vermouth with a dot or two of orange bitters.’

  THE ORANGE BITTERS MARTINI

  A classic martini with one or a few dots of orange bitters added to the shaker. Fee Brothers recommend one to three dashes. This is arguably the martini drunk in the US of the 1930s/1940s/1950s (see The Stuart).

  THE HONGELL

  A classic martini served in a Hongell glass, that is wide at the rim and then narrows down slightly to a heavy heel or base with no stem.

  THE GIBSON

  A close relative of the martini. It’s a classic martini served with a pickled onion instead of an olive and also mixed to the rhythm of the waltz. ‘It was named after a pen-and-ink illustrator for the American magazine Life, Charles Dana Gibson, who died in 1940.’

  THE MANHATTAN

  A distant relative of the martini. 1 part whisky to ¼ part sweet vermouth, with a dash of bitters, served in a martini glass. Variations are made with dry vermouth and combinations of sweet and dry vermouth, shaken to the rhythm of a foxtrot.

  THE DESERT WIND

  Charles Willeford writes, in Wild Wives: ‘I call my martini a Desert Wind. Nine-tenths gin, one-tenth vermouth. No olive. No onion. Nothing. Just a toothpick.’

  THE HARRY CATTERNS

  ‘When I was living with Sarah Ducker and her son Harry, who was about six, he would enjoy mixing the martinis at the cocktail hour. He would have a juice and I would have a martini while we watched the television news. During one mixing he misremembered my instructions and put the olives in the martini shaker rather than the glass. After he had finished his mixing, we fished them out of the cocktail shaker and put them in my martini glass. It was, accidentally, an acceptable innovation to the martini. From then on we called this martini a “Harry Catterns”…’

  THE OLDER MAN

  In the chapter from Forty-Seventeen entitled ‘Martini’, the older man says that now he is approaching the age of forty, he prefers his martini 5:1 with an olive, very cold.

  THE NAKED MARTINI

  Only vodka or gin and an olive – no vermouth.

  THE GIMLET

  A distant relative from the 1920s. 2½ parts gin, to ¾ fresh lime juice – or, at a pinch, Rose’s bottled lime juice – served in a martini glass with a wedge of lime as garnish.

  THE VESUVIO

  A mad relative. Equal parts gin and vodka, no vermouth.

  … our Vesuvio martinis

  with no vermouth but vodka

  to sweeten the dry gin –

  Also drunk by Ian Fleming.

  THE JAMES BOND

  ‘… three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add lemon peel.’ From Casino Royale.

  Lillet Blanc is a French aperitif white wine – close to being a vermouth – with a taste of citrus. It is usually served chilled with a slice of orange, either on its own or with ice. It is the favourite drink of Hannibal Lecter from Silence of the Lambs.

  THE SQUIRREL

  A classic martini with an acorn instead of an olive.

  Served only to squirrels.

  THE UPSIDE DOWN

  ‘Roger Angell in an essay in the New Yorker on the martini says he has a sister-in-law who likes what he calls an upside-down martini – a martini with the usual proportions reversed – that is, a drink which is mostly vermouth with a little gin.’

  (Sunni, the much loved waiter at the Bayswater Brasserie, often suggests an upside-down martini, and laughs.)

  THE VIRGIN

  ‘A woman told me that when she felt like a martini but didn’t feel like drinking she’d make a shaker of ice and water with just a dash of gin, a taste of vermouth – enough to give the drink a suggestion of the martini – and add a twist. “I drink these sometimes while reading,” she said, “and while dreaming of a martini”.’

  THE TIN HOUSE

  Designed for the NY magazine Tin House by Greg Connolly, bartender at the Four Seasons restaurant in NYC.

  Pour ½ part of Pernod into a cocktail shaker and swirl until it coats the inside of the shaker, pour off the liquid. Absinthe can be substituted for pernod. Splash 2 eye-dropperfuls of dry vermouth into the bottom of the shaker and again swirl it and then pour off the liquid.

  Pour 4 to 4½ parts of Tanqueray gin into the shaker, add ice, and with a ridiculously long-handled silver mixing spoon stir twenty times (exactly).

  Pour the drink into a very well-chilled martini glass and then add three small green olives, or two large ones, without a toothpick.

  One of these olives should be eaten only after the martini has been drunk.

  ON THE ROCKS

  Any of the above versions served in a large martini glass with ice, preferably in chips with Sharon Stone edges, served in a large martini glass.

  THE KOSHER MARTINI

  Gin is kosher but the vermouth requires certification since it is made from wine.

  THE BLACK THORN FAUX MARTINI

  ½ parts sloe gin to 1 part sweet vermouth, shaken in a cocktail shaker with ice, served in a chilled martini glass garnished with a twist of lemon. This drink only sounds like a martini.

  Crazy Drinks

  THE FLIRTINI

  Raspberry syrup, 1 part ‘Razberi’ flavoured Stolichnaya vodka, 1 part Cointreau, lime, pineapple and cranberry juices, and a splash of champagne served in a martini glass. Sarah Jessica Parker named it the Flirtini.

  THE COSMOPOLITAN (SOMETIMES CALLED A PINK MARTINI)

  ½ parts vodka, 1 part Cointreau, ½ part lime and 1 part cranberry juice – a good drink in itself but not a relative of the martini.

  ESPRESSO CHOCOLATE MARTINI

  1 cold espresso coffee: 1½ vodka: 1½ coffee liqueur: 1 Crème de Cacao.

  TIMES SQUARE TOOTSIE

  1:1 Godiva chocolate liqueur and Cointreau (garnish, a slice of orange).

  Tootsie is slang for a woman and the name of the 1982 film in which Dustin Hoffman crossdresse
s.

  THE SIDECAR

  2 parts brandy

  1 part lemon juice

  1 part Cointreau

  Rim glass with coarse granulated sugar. Combine in cocktail shaker with ice, shake well, strain and pour into glass with a sugar cube.

  One of the drinks of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald.

  Martini Music

  Old songs are more than tunes,

  They are little houses in which our hearts once lived.

  Ben Hecht

  The music I like to drink with is described in an advertisement for a CD called Cocktail Piano Music, put together by Jim Haskins. Haskins says, ‘Cocktail piano music … is quiet, sophisticated music, not quite jazz and not quite classical, but drawing from both schools. It usually features the great standards of the 30s and 40s from such gifted writers as George Gershwin, Harold Arlen, Duke Ellington, Rodgers & Hart and many others. It is music to end your day with … In short, you’re about to make a new friend …’

  Haskins includes these tunes in his selection: These Foolish Things, Fly Me to the Moon, Stormy Weather, Misty, Here’s That Rainy Day, April in Paris, I Let a Song Out of My Heart, September Song, Laura, As Time Goes By, I See Your Face Before Me, I Guess I’ll Have to Change My Plan, Dancing On the Ceiling, Time After Time, Georgia On My Mind, Long Ago and Far Away, All the Things You Are, Ramona, Tenderly, Emily, Stars Fell On Alabama, Nobody’s Heart, You Are Too Beautiful, Come Rain or Come Shine, Satin Doll, I Loves You Porgy, Bless You Is My Woman, Angel Eyes, He Loves and She Loves, Remind Me, It’s the Talk of the Town, While We’re Young, Cry Me a River, I Get Along Without You Very Well.