Shaken
Our Worldwide Quest for the Ultimate Dry Martini
For years, we frequented a vaguely down-at-the-mouth boat people’s bar on the Los Alamitos Marina in Long Beach, California, where we swore that Rick the bartender mixed up the best dry martinis on the planet. Somehow, we concluded that there was something about the process that responded to a man’s touch. But then, we met Amanda at the 555 Steakhouse in downtown—and promptly forgot about Rick. Sounds improbable that the two best martinis on the planet—or maybe in the universe?—should both come from the same sunny, seaside corner of Southern California?
Well, people… Sometimes, facts are like that.
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) is one of those shadowy organizations that make the physical world go around without any of us noticing. Without them, your laptop and phone would serve better as boat anchors. You couldn’t plug a hair dryer into a wall, and if you could, none of the buttons would function. With no boat, plane, train, or car to shunt you about, you could retreat to your home, but you couldn’t lock the door, heat the oven, or turn on the lights. And while you were pondering your misfortune, chances are, your roof might cave in. Unless your name was Ted Kaczynski, your life as you knew it would cease.
But if there’s one standard where we’ve decided the Institute has it all wrong, it’s the American National Standard Safety Codes and Requirements for Dry Martinis (or ANSI K100.1-1974). This is the only industrial-strength standard we know of for a cocktail, and the only (tongue-in-cheek) cocktail standard promulgated by the Institute—so you’d imagine they might get it right. But while we agree with their detailed definitions of gin, vodka, vermouth, and the green olive, we find the mixtures and methods hopelessly out of date.
Simply put, the true, modern dry martini consists entirely of too much vodka and cracked ice, shaken to oblivion, and then filtered—icy, but ice-free—into a regulation martini glass (we import our glasses from the Duke’s Hotel of London, but that’s only for purists who promise to never break their ridiculously overpriced glasses).
The cheap, fortified, adulterated wine called vermouth gets nowhere near the stainless steel shaker. The shaking oxygenates the drink, and the olive adds vitamins C and E, along with antioxidants to fight cancer, osteoporosis, skin defects, heart disease, and who knows what else. Or you can opt, as we often do, to reduce your blood pressure by inhaling the sweet, sensuous aroma of a lemon rind twisted over the drink and massaged into the rim.
By now, you’ve probably guessed that the dry martini is a quintessentially American cocktail—and in that, you’d be right. When James Bond ordered his muddled version of the drink, he was reflecting the fact that, in the 1950s and 1960s, “American” stood for hip and modern. The country that brought you the Kennedys, Coca Cola, the space program, frozen peas, nuclear energy, and the candy bar was leading the way into the future, martini in fist. Famed drinkers like Winston Churchill and Noel Coward stood aside as the Yankophile Bond—James Bond sent gin and vodka sales into the stratosphere.
Sounds like a simple drink anyone could mix up, right? Wrong! There is no more deceptive libation in existence, and we’ve proved it the (cocktail-drinking) world over. In spite of our detailed instructions to bartenders in every language (or not quite—we gave up on the Turks, Moroccans, and Hindus, who don’t especially prize alcohol to begin with), here are a few unfortunate examples:
Le Meurice, Paris:
At one of our favorite bars on the planet, the bartender listened carefully, then took a bottle of vodka out of the freezer and poured it straight into the glass. Who did he think we were, Russians?
The Savoy, London:
London might be the home of the stirred gin martini, but if you’re lucky, you’ll find a foreigner with a shaker. And never forget that this is the country that drinks their beer at room temperature. Yech!
Anywhere in Belgium:
In a small, oft-invaded, and intrinsically cosmopolitan country, you’d expect to find experts in every flavor of food or drink. Not so much. Of course, Bruxelles was liberated at Waterloo and in both World Wars by the British so… (see above)
Raffles, Dubai:
With a name like Raffles, you’d expect a Singapore-slung foo-foo version in a delicate glass. You wouldn’t be surprised.
The upshot is, you’re seeking a prefect balance: Too much shaking, and the drink tastes like water. Too little, and you think you’ve landed in Moscow. Faulty filtering into the glass, and you want to hand off the slurry to your favorite polar bear. Of course, you can always stay home, like Glinda, and turn yourself into the best unpaid bartender in the universe (!!!), but then you’d miss out on Randy.
Randy was a friend we met years ago over martinis at that raunchy boat people bar. He recently passed away, rich, contented, and well into his 90s.
In the Korean War, Randy volunteered for the American Special Forces and was parachuted behind Chinese lines. For several months, he survived one manhunt after another, while successfully carrying out an unsupported mission that remains classified to this day. By the time he crossed back on a broken leg to the American lines, he was so shot up and dehydrated, that he required several surgeries and months of recuperation at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington DC.
In another, earlier hospital, Randy had fallen in love with a beautiful nurse, but lost contact when they were separated. He mentioned her maiden name to us, and Glinda, God bless her, used all of her sensational pre-internet searching skills to find the woman. Betty had passed away, unfortunately, so it ended there. But we never would have known Randy and heard all of his incredible stories, were it not for our quest for the perfect dry martini.
What’s that proverb about God closing doors and opening windows?
Ahhhh my fellow martini drinkers...fabulous and soooo true martini article.