The Martini is justifiably the archetypal cocktail. A uniquely American invention, like the cocktail hour,
itself, the Martini was probably created in San Francisco in the 1860s. Legendary mixologist "Professor"
Jerry Thomas mixed one for a traveler headed for Martinez California and named the drink after his
destination. The "Martinez" was staggeringly sweet by modern standards, being a mixture of sweetened
gin, sweet vermouth, bitters, sugar syrup and curacao. However, the crucial mixture of gin and vermouth
began here. Harry Johnson's 1888 New and Improved Illustrated Bartender's Manual or How to Mix
Drinks of the Present Style is the first recipe book to spell the cocktail as "Martini" and lists this
typically-sacchaarin recipe:
Fill a large bar glass wih ice. Mix in 2-3 dashes of bitters, 2-3 dashes of sugar syrup, dash of
curacao, jigger of Old Tom Gin (a sweetened gin), jigger of sweet vermouth. Stir well, strain into
a cocktail glass, squeeze a piece of lemon peel on top and serve.
The Martini become steadily dryer as the 19th century came to a close. By 1891, William T. "Cocktail"
Boothby's Cocktail Boothby's American Bartender Martini recipe omitted the sugar syrup, curacao and
bitters, noting the sweetened gin and sweet vermouth "are both sweet enough." The critical step toward a
true dry Martini came in Thomas Stuart's Stuart's Fancy Drinks and How to Make Them which listed this
1896 Martini variation as a "Marguerite": 1dash orange bitters, 1 jigger dry gin, � jigger dry vermouth.
Known as the "Puritan" for its ascetic dryness, this recipe remained the standard well into the 1930s,
although it soon became universally known as a "Dry Martini." The Martini really took off during
Prohibition, as gin was one of the easier liquors to counterfeit. Robert Benchley's recipe from the
Algonquin Roundtable was "gin, and just enough vermouth to take away that nasty, watery look." The
Martini became as dry as 3-1 gin-to-vermouth by WWII.
Following WWII, two great advances hit the Martini. The first was an improved filtration process for
making vermouth which removed the yellowish color which it had up through the 1930s, bringing us the
crystal-clear look of the modern Martini. The other was an ever-increasing lust for dryness. By 1949,
Ernest Hemingway was drinking 15-to-1 "Montgomery" Martinis, after the odds the British general
supposedly required before attacking an enemy. Hammacher Schlemmer introduced a calibrated "Martini
dropper," while Nick's Restaurant in Boston claimed its bartender had succeeded in "isolating the
vermouth molecule," apparently to be added to a dry Martini one at a time. A letter to the Boston Globe in
1966 claimed a bottle of vermouth had been vaporized in an above-ground nuclear bomb test, thus
allowing vermouth to be added merely by holding ones glass out a window for a "fissionable Martini."
The winds of change were still blowing over the Martini; the first recipe for a vodka Martini was published
in 1951. In Ian Fleming's Casino Royale of 1953, James Bond mixes 3 measures of dry gin, 1 of vodka,
and a half of dry vermouth. By the early 1970s, vodka Martinis outsold gin
Today, in both chic restaurants and seedy dives, the Martini persists in infinite variation. Order it with
spiced or flavored vodka or gin, spike it with creme de cacao or creme de menthe or creme de cassis,
garnish with an olive, an onion, a twist or a maraschino cherry! The Martini remains a uniquely American
phenomenon even into the 1990s, existing now as an expression of diversity and individual creativity.
However, if pressed for a recipe, I'd claim the "classic" Martini is 6-1 dry gin to dry vermouth, shaken
vigorously over ice, strained ino a long-stemmed cocktail glass, and garnished with a twist of lemon peel.
What can match its spare, cool elegance and oxymoronic combination of simpicity and sophistication?
For "dry," try 10-1 gin-to-vermouth; "extra dry" is at most a few drops of vermouth (I've seen 'Martini
spritzers' made from pump spray botles like those used for hair spray. Extra dry = 1 spritz).
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-Doghourse Reilly