Thursday, April 21 2011

Gin Yummy - In Search of the Perfect Martini

Caution: the following blog contains descriptions and situations involving delicious cocktails, and is intended only for legal adults. It also contains great big cranky opinions and dogma presented as inviolable truth. Baloney detector advised.

 

Yes, he drank vodka. Not even the best secret agents can be perfect

One of the questions people who find out what I do for a living ask me strikes me as being very funny: 'Do you ever drink anything besides wine?' Of course there's water, coffee, tea et cetera, but what they mean is, do I like any other alcohol beverages besides wine.

I was lucky enough to hear the perfect answer to this question from a hero of mine, Michael Jackson. No, not the incredibly weird pop star: the Michael Jackson, the Beer Hunter himself. I was present at a beer tasting event where he was the guest speaker, and someone asked him if he ever drank anything besides beer. He answered that there were days when he did not drink wine, but there were never two in a row, because, he said, 'Beer is a playground, not a prison.'

Perfect answer, isn't it? So wine is my playground (albeit it's also my living, my vocation and the source of an awful lot of other social and business intercourse) but I like lots of other alcohol beverages. Not all, of course: alcohol for its own sake doesn't really captivate me, thank goodness—that way lies dissolution and madness—so I tend to skip flavourless drinks like vodka or 'lite' beer. I'm very fond of good beer, enjoy Whisky in all its guises, appreciate a good Brandy, but there's a special spot in my heart for Martinis.

Pudding, maybe, but not a Martini

Before I tell you about my quest for the perfect Martini, I have to get something straight: A Martini is a cocktail made from Gin enhanced by vermouth and other subtle additions and garnishes. There is no such thing as a Vodka Martini—that drink is properly a Vodka cocktail. In addition, there are no drinks with liqueur, fruit or chocolate in them that are Martinis. These are all some form or another of cocktail, usually sweet to the point of tooth-spinning delirium and while rather a lot of people enjoy them, calling a fish a bicycle doesn't give it spoked wheels and handlebars, and calling a fruity cocktail a Martini doesn't make it one.

Ahem. I know there are people who disagree with me, but that's all right: they only disagree because they're wrong. I haven't budged on this in thirty years (since my first martini) and I'm not starting now. All Martinis are cocktails, but not all cocktails are Martinis, despite breathless marketing attempts to the contrary.

If you see the Buddha in the road, kill him. Or, make him a Martini.

Defining a Martini in this strict way doesn't mean you don't have room for a bit of creativity, flair and the occasional lapse of wretched excess. The formal Martini process I'm going to lay out here does take a certain amount of time, but rather than a chore I choose to view it as a kind of ritual, meditative and soothing, like the Japanese tea ceremony, or the preparation of a perfect cup of coffee. It focuses the mind on the pleasure of the activity of making the drink and enhances the anticipation of the final product.

This begs the question, what do you do for a crowd, when a shaker really only holds two decent-sized drinks and a dozen people are crowing with thirst and need? For those occasions I've developed a tricksy short-cut: I keep a bottle of Plymouth Gin in the freezer, which I have diluted by approximately 20% with spring water and flavoured with a few curls of lemon zest and 15 ml (about one tablespoon) of Vermouth. This brings the alcohol content to approximately 30%, the correct level for a proper Martini and it can be simply poured into a cocktail glass with olives to obviate native restlessness and soothe parched throats. Always be prepared for emergencies!

Now, onward to the essay on Martinis. First, the cast of characters.

Back row from left to right, Gin, Vermouth, Single-Malt Scotch, cocktail shaker with strainer, shaker top. Middle: olives, footed cocktail glasses. Front: picks, a lemon, razor sharp knife, peeler.

The first step is to assemble the ingredients and the tools of the trade. Gin brand preference is up to the individual, and I usually have three or four kinds on hand. I tend to go between Bombay Sapphire (quite crisp with emphasis on roots and spice) and Tanqueray 10 (more herbal and complex) most of the time, with occasional diversions to Hendricks (completely ga-ga with earthiness). I find other Gin brands, for the most part, seem better suited to dilution with tonic and lime: because so much of the character of a good Martini comes directly from the blend of herbs, spices and botanicals in the Gin, bargain-brands don't work as well as a splurge-brand does. Because a really good cocktail is a once-in-a-while event, the cost really doesn't add up that fast.

Next is Vermouth. I have a devil of a time with this stuff as it always goes stale and oxidized on me. I buy the smallest bottle I can find and keep it in the refrigerator and if I anticipate a Martini session I go buy a new bottle. It was much better when I could find airline bottles of it, but I haven't seen any in my local bottle shop in a couple of years. C'est la guerre, and the lesson is, taste your vermouth before you use it, and if it tastes oxidized, stale, flat or yucky, toss it out: it won't help things.

The Scotch may come as a surprise. This is a trick I learned from a very bad man many years ago. He was the bartender in the lounge of a restaurant I worked at as a chef de partie. In many ways I blame him for my rigidly orthodox approach to cocktailoring, but he was the kind of guy who would routinely toss out all of the garnish (lemon and lime wedges, etc) when he walked on shift because he didn't like the way they were cut or trimmed. Don't' worry if you don't have single malt: it works nearly as well with blended.

A cocktail shaker is key to the process. If a Martini is simply stirred it doesn't get cold enough until it has been thoroughly diluted by melting ice. When properly shaken, the ice cubes chip and spall off fragments that are ground down into smaller and smaller particles, without a chance to fully melt. This reduces the temperature of the drink beautifully without diluting the alcohol below the crucial 30% threshold, where it loses its ability to fully convey flavours. This is why Bond (James Bond) always insisted on 'shaken, not stirred': he knew what he was doing!

Shakers that have a little cap on them (possibly) with a wee thingy covering a built-in strainer are rubbish, as they don't allow enough vigour in the shaking due to the short throw the ice and cocktail ingredients must travel through. Only a two-part shaker and glass combo have the length of throw that batters and shatters the ice in a proper fashion. The strainer is very necessary as it allows small ice chips to flow into the cocktail glass while holding back unsightly chunks that would make delicate sipping difficult.

Good martini olives are another key ingredient. You want really big ones that take a bite or two to get through, for toothsomeness. Really small olives always seem disappointingly mushy to me. Brands vary, and if you're feeling seditious you can substitute cocktail onions (the savoury kind, not the sweet ones) and no one will think any less of you.

Olive picks can be as simple as a decent-sized wooden toothpick (I have some beautiful green bamboo ones that are quite enviro-friendly) but there is an immense amount of dash to be had from a purpose-made metal pick. The ones shown in this picture are actually sold as 'ham picks', but that's complete balderdash. Nobody puts ham in a Martini! They're silver and quite heavy, and might possibly be useful for staking very tiny vampires in an emergency.

The lemon is a key balancing ingredient in the mix. The drink doesn't need any of the juice, but to balance the herbal nervousness of the vermouth, and the smokey notes of the scotch, a wee bit of lemon oil from the peel functions as a clarifier, and an enhancer. The peeler is there to get the peel off of the lemon, and the knife is need to both remove the pith (the white part) and to cut the remaining peel into sections.

A word on the unsung hero of the Martini process: the ice. As in all things, don't skimp on this particular ingredient. Good, fresh, hard-frozen ice will chill and correctly dilute your drink. If you've got cubes that have been hanging around in the freezer next to a frozen trout and a box of garlic cheese-puffs, they will have picked those aromas and flavours and will transfer them into your drink, for a lot of very interesting, but unwelcome taste sensations.

I tend to buy a bag of ice for cocktail night. Commercially prepared ice is made with purified water, and carries no cross-scents or flavours. As a plus, I never have to plan ahead to have ice cube trays filled when the urges strikes. As with home-made cubes, if the bag has been sitting in your freezer for a long time (ie, if it's filled with snow), out it must go.

Next, Assemble your Martini!

First, take your peeler and get a couple of sheets of peel off of the lemon.

Thin sheets, but don't worry about being too neat at this point.

Flip the peel over and run the knife parallel to the cutting board, underneath the white pith. This will leave you a lovely thin piece of pure peel.

Pith off, neaten up the edges.

After that cut it into uniform strips, You'll need one strip per Martini, and a bit left over for the glasses and for spritzing--we'll get to that.

Neatness counts, but not too much.

Set the lemon strips aside and pick your olives. Be generous: everyone loves a little tapas with their cocktail.

A stake through the heart and bury them under running gin.

We're nearly ready to assemble. We need to pre-chill our glasses to keep the drink at maximum coldness--you can't just gulp down a Martini (unless you like short evenings and long naps), so fill the glasses with ice and top up with water. Let them sit for three or four minutes to cool down completely.While you're at it you can fill the cocktail shaker with your yummy, well-frozen ice.

Frosty the cocktail, was a happy jolly soul . . .

Discard the ice-water from the glasses and then introduce Mr. Scotch to Miss Footed Cocktail-Glass--but only a wee drop, perhaps a teaspoon. Don't worry, it's not staying long

Ahh, the water of life.

Roll the whisky around the inside of the glass, coating all surfaces and then dump the glass out into a convenient receptacle. Your mouth counts. The whisky provides a wee, nigh infinitesimal hint of smoke and sweet barley notes that lie underneath the rest of the botanicals and herbs like a hint of heather on the breeze.

Roll on the rim, to win

Next take a piece of the lemon peel, squeeze it gently to express some of the oils and rub the rim of the glass all the way around. This gives an extra boost of lemon aroma as you bring the glass up to drink out of it.

Vermouth makes a mercifully brief appearance

Next, pour an ounce or so of vermouth over the ice cubes into the shaker. Swirl the vermouth around, and then discard it entirely. The amount of vermouth in a Martini determines it's dryness: more vermouth means less dry. I like my Martinis insanely desert-dry, so a quick rinse is fine with me. The original recipe, the kind of Martini that Hemingway toasted Alice B Toklas (world's worst baker) with in Paris was extremely wet, two parts Gin to one part Vermouth. Because most people have a vermouth problem like mine (ie, it goes stale before they drink it all) but don't buy fresh stuff often enough, Martinis have gradually become drier and drier, eliminating the chance that lousy vermouth will spoil the drink. I happen to think that it's a good development, because Gin has gotten much more interesting since then, so I prefer to showcase it.

Not by the hair of my Ginny-Gin-Gin

Once you're rid of the Vermouth, it's time for the Gin. I make nice big Martinis, because I generally only have one: two and a half ounces of per serving is about right.

Next, assemble the shaker, and shake. No, not like you're worried about upsetting the ice cubes: shake the living bejabbers out of it, like this:

Would you buy a cocktail from this man?

You need to shake until you turn the ice into mush, get all those chips in there. Not only does this get the drink as cold as it needs to be, but also you dilute it into the easy sipping range.

Icy cold goodness

Pour it into your glasses and enjoy. If you've shaken hard enough, you'll have about three ounces of liquid for every 2-1/2 ounces of Gin you used. Make sure to pop in your strip of lemon peel.

The final product

The drink will initially have a lot of little ice chips in it, making it cloudy. These will melt in a few minutes, leaving it clear, icy-cold and utterly delicious.

See? It's health food!

As with all alcohol containing beverages, use with moderation, share with others, and never drink anything that isn't utterly delicious--always save room for the good stuff.

Posted by Bond, Tim Bond AT 8:52PM

6 Comments

Post A Comment

Email