I Suck At Making Martinis

my friend, andrea, today got me thinking about the martini making competition that my other friends (hot jen and hot amy) came up with as a possible event for the 2008 event series. (i had started the 2008 event series with a photo scavenger hunt in early january, which was before i even started blogging. so you won't see any postings about it). anyway, this martini making competition would be the second event in the event series.

never shy when it comes to promoting herself (unless of course it comes to men), andrea wanted to call her concoction an "andi-tini". she has yet to create an andi-tini, so i'm not even sure what the ingredients are for her drink. rather than call it an andi-tini, i suggested she would be better off calling her concoction a digitini (since the first four letters of her last name are "digi") as it would have a better ring to it. needless to say, andrea likes "didgitini" better than digitini, proving that i suck at making martinis. apparently, "didgi" has more phonetical emphasis to it so that people will not mess up when pronouncing. (you know, because when i see the word "digital", i get confused on how to pronounce it).

anyway, the whole martini thing got me thinking about what makes a martini a martini, which is actually useful to know if i am going to plan this martini making competition for the next event in the event series. thanks to wikipedia, here is the research i've come upon thus far:

While variations are many, a standard modern martini is a five to one ratio, made by combining approximately two and a half ounces of gin and one half ounce of dry vermouth with ice. Many Europeans, however, prefer somewhat less vermouth—about a six to one proportion of gin or vodka to vermouth. Many bartending schools insist that a beverage shaker tends to dull the taste of the vermouth, and some argue that it sharpens the taste of gin by "bruising" the liquid. However, it is relatively common to see a bartender mix a martini with a shaker due in part to the influence of fictional super-spy James Bond, who asked for his martinis "shaken, not stirred" (such a martini is traditionally referred to as a "Bradford"). The ingredients are mixed then strained and served "up" (without ice) in a chilled cocktail glass, and garnished with either an olive or a twist of lemon (a strip of the peel, usually squeezed or twisted to express volatile oils onto the surface of the drink).

While the standard martini may call for a five to one ratio of distilled spirits to vermouth, aficionados of the dry martini may reduce the proportion of vermouth drastically for a drier martini. Connoisseurs boast of sweetening the cocktail by merely coating the glass with vermouth. It is said that a "Churchill martini" contains no vermouth, just British gin. The legend holds that Churchill would get as close to the vermouth bottle as to "look at it from across the room". This would make it very dry or a so-called "Churchill martini" On the other hand, some experts strongly object to this practice, arguing that a cocktail with one predominant ingredient is no cocktail at all, and furthermore, that the term "dry" has nothing to do with the gin-to-vermouth ratio, but with the use of dry, white, French vermouth instead of sweet, red, Italian vermouth.

Although it started with olive as a garnish, olive juice can be added to a martini to make it a dirty martini. The taste of olive distracts from the taste of straight gin and vermouth, easing the stiffness of the drink.

Some aficionados avoid imparting excessive flavors to their martinis. If they do use an olive, it is either unstuffed or is stuffed with something as neutral as an almond; the olive itself is rinsed of any brining or vinegar solution prior to use. The olive is then slipped into the martini so as not to disturb the fine mixture of gin and vermouth. A "lemon twist" is considered a more delicate garnish because of its mild and complementary flavor accent. In this case, a special lemon peeler might strip off a slender rope of lemon (including the pith) while the lemon is held carefully above the nearly finished martini. This orientation allows the mist of lemon oils to gently spray the top of the cocktail.

However, classic martini recipes from the early part of the 20th century use a gin-to-vermouth ratio as low as 2:1. The most common ratio for a classic, as opposed to a modern, martini is 3:1. The broad variation of gin to vermouth ratios is the source of much discussion and speculation.

Another common but controversial variation is the vodka martini, made with vodka instead of gin. In the 1990s, the vodka martini supplanted the traditional gin-based martini in popularity. Today, when bar and restaurant customers order a "martini", they frequently have in mind a drink made with vodka. Martini purists decry this development: while few object to the drink itself, they strenuously object to it being called a martini. The martini, they insist, is a gin-based cocktail; this variation should be designated as such, with the name "vodka martini" (or "vodkatini", or "kangaroo"). Further confusion may arise from confusing Martini vermouth, a brand of vermouth, with the martini cocktail.

A more recent development that further offends martini purists is the use of "martini" (or the suffix "-tini") to refer to any flavored vodka cocktail served straight up in a cocktail glass, such as the appletini, the chocolatini, or the pineapple martini."

anyway, based on the wikipedia information, i think that the competition will be more of the vodka type. i'll have to work on flushing out the details of this competition some more.